kissing and warfare
by Bookreader525
Summary: On the night of her eighteenth birthday, Louise Belcher makes a choice. Elsewhere, in another universe that is more or less parallel, she makes a different choice. (aka: not-quite parallels of Louise's life with Logan and, elsewhere, Louise's life with Rudy.)
1. if i fall, you catch me

**ahhh, here we go! i have been working on this bad boy for almost two months now and it's allllmost done. just a little more struggling and crying over my keyboard, then we're good to go!**

 **so yeah. this, i hope, is an unusual one. while all the stories we have for this little fandom are fabulous, there aren't nearly enough. so i decided, why not contribute junk from the strange, dangerous place i call my mind? let's do this!**

 **if the summary confused you, it basically is like this: logan makes an offer to louise; in one universe she says yes, and in another she says no. the story where she says yes is in regular text. the story where she says no is in italicized text. if you're only here for one pairing, then logan/louise lovers should stick to the regular text, and those who prefer rudy/louise should read the italicized text. as of yet, they really haven't intertwined so there shouldn't be any confusion there if you only do one.**

 **i really tried to stick to vague similarities between louise's two different lives, but in the end the two stories drifted too far apart. hell, maybe it would be better to just separate them into their own fics - but screw it! i'm sticking with this stupid idea. so anyway, i hope ya'll enjoy this. see ya next chapter!**

* * *

She places a hamburger patty on the grill, watching the juice sizzle around the edges. Her eyes are glazed over out of boredom, fingers frozen on the handle of the spatula as she stands, poised to flip the burger over.

She actually doesn't mind dull days like these. Standing in front of the grill, both feet placed on the worn area where her father has stood almost every day for some twenty years, she's at last able to relax. Her mind drifts away like a leaf in the breeze, and she lets it land wherever the wind takes it.

There is one small problem, however. With a huff and a jingle from the little bell above the door, a revolting blond vermin marches his way into the restaurant, bringing in a swirl of wintry flakes with him. He stomps off the snow caked in his boots and heaves himself onto a stool in front of the counter.

"Hey! I know you're back there," he yells while shouldering off his jacket and, never forgetting his oh-so-classy charm, letting it fall to the floor.

She barely spares a glance through the window to the front of the restaurant. Her only response is a grunt.

"C'mon, Four Ears. It's a special day today!"

Her eyes flick back to the burger, which is now done on one side. The spatula nudges at the edge of the patty, then with a flick of her wrist, the burger lands with a satisfying splat on its other side.

He speaks again, but this time with a tone almost devoid of enthusiasm. "Louise… what's up?"

Her fingers squeeze tighter around the spatula, and she imagines its stained handle as his neck. "Take a goddamn hint, Barry Bush."

Barry Bush, better known as Logan or Thy Royal Asshole, leans over the counter to snag her glare. "What is your problem? It's supposed to be, like, one of the best days of your life!"

"I have every right to be miserable today, just like every other day." She shrugs. "After all, it is _my_ day celebrating _me_ , right? So it is my choice what my mood is."

Logan goes on as if she hadn't spoken. "Ah, I remember my eighteenth birthday… it was wild. Almost as good as my twenty-first. That one had more drinks."

"Well, I wasn't invited to either, so I wouldn't know, would I?"

"Aw, don't be so jealous, Four Ears! You were only, like, twelve or something at the time. Not exactly legal to have a little kid in the bar."

She slams a plate next to the grill and opens up a hamburger bun, then slides the cooked patty into it. "Well, I know just what you're trying to do here, and it's not exactly legal to drink at eighteen, either, pal."

His smirk is venomous. "And when has that ever stopped you in the past? At seventeen? Sixteen? Fif—"

"Shut your damn mouth before I shove this mediocre burger into it!" Louise hisses. She places slices of lettuce, tomato, and pepper jack cheese on the burger, then completes it with a squirt of mayonnaise. She circles out to the front and seconds later the completed burger is dropped down in front of Logan.

His stupidly smug look fades somewhat. "Uh, I didn't ask for anyth—"

"Just eat it," she sighs. "I'll make another one for myself."

Louise observes him, eyes cool and calculated as he takes a cautious bite of the food. "Humph," he says around a mouthful. "You remembered the mayo."

"How could I forget?" she asks, feigning sweetness. "I've only cooked burgers for you, like, twice. Or, wait, was it five hundred times?"

"Not my fault I'm a shit cook."

"Not my fault I was born into a burger family!"

Logan snorts, swallowing the bite. "Burger family. Ha. But really, burger-making is an art."

"My dad isn't here right now; you don't have to kiss his ass—"

"Seriously. You get this art, Four Ears. You're a burger _artist_. No joke." Logan indulges in another large bite and groans. "Mmm…"

Sweat springs up on the back of her neck, and she turns, ponytail swishing as she retreats back into the kitchen. She needs some distance between herself and those piercing blue eyes and those… weird chewing noises.

"You're an adult now, as of today," his voice creeps in through the window. "You can finally make your own decisions, without having to go through your parents first. So are you coming with me or not?"

Louise takes a deep breath and stares at the pickle-shaped crack in the ceiling. "That'll $5.95 for the burger," she says.

 **oo0oo**

"You're absolutely freaking insane, and if anything goes wrong tonight it will be your fault and it will be you under my father's knife," Louise announces when Logan returns later that evening.

"Whoa, whoa, chill," he says, raising his palms in defense. "Trust me, I'm not planning to get… uh, scalped by your dad or anything. I just want to take you out. It's your birthday, and it's Friday night." There is a pause as she scowls at him and he shivers in the open doorway. "Soo…" Logan lets out a breath. "It's also January, so it'd be nice if you either let me in or we get a move on."

She pulls her bunny ears down more tightly over her head and storms out to his car. Inside, it feels like she is breathing Arctic air and slowly turning into an ice cube.

"Jesus, doesn't the heat work in here?" she demands, teeth chattering.

Logan slides into the driver's seat next to her. "Depends. It only works if the car feels like it." He turns the dial up all the way and strikes the dashboard a couple times, but his efforts are fruitless.

"Well, isn't that fantastic." Louise slouches, watching the ugly little buildings of their town go by through the window. Being the dead of winter, it's already dark outside and at the end of the block are the lights of Wonder Wharf and the boardwalk. The place has gotten more and more run down over the years, and now that it's closed for the season it looks all the more desolate.

The small car turns once, then slides into a parking spot along the curb. Louise frowns, sitting up and looking questioningly at the driver. "Uh, what's wrong? Did this trusty ol' piece of shit break down or someth—"

The kiss is fleeting, but even after he separates from her, the feeling of his lips lingers. This is far from her first kiss— she's certainly been around the bases more than once when it comes to boys (and girls)— but the fact that it's her first one with Logan makes it different. And she _hates_ how unspectacular it was.

Cold car. Frosty fingers. Numb nose. How could his mouth be so warm?

"What the hell?" she whispers.

"Come with me," he says, kicking open his door and jogging around the car to open her door. She scoffs and climbs out herself, slapping away his hand when he offers to help her up.

Her Converse, which are dirty and worn old hand-me-downs from Tina, trudge unenthusiastically along the sidewalk as he leads her up to the closed-up boardwalk entrance. The icy air bites through the holes in her purposely-ripped jeans, and she crosses her arms tighter over herself and her partially-open jacket.

They easily duck under the entrance blocker, and walk some way in silence before they reach one of the outlets to the shore. Louise is now absolutely frigid and fully prepared to wait out whatever dumb shit Logan has planned back in his slightly-less-frigid car.

"Welcome to the beach," Logan tells her with a grin. They head down the wooden stairs, both instinctively skipping the broken steps. When her sneakers land on the sand, the final straw is pulled.

"Alright, Bush. Why are we really here? I mean, I know I've never ever seen the ocean before— it's not like I've lived in a seaside town my whole life or anything— but it's actually not the middle of July right now, believe it or not."

He smirks. "Well, well, well. Little Ms. Sassy Ears here thinks she's so cute with her sarcasm." All at once, the grin is wiped off his face and his eyes lock onto hers with the most serious of expressions. "I gotta tell you something."

Her eyebrows slant. "Yeah?"

And then there's a bucketful of sand being sprayed in her face. She shrieks, spitting out globs of the stuff and taking up chase of her attacker, who is already several yards away.

Who knew sand was so uncomfortable to run on in late January? Without the sun to bake in, it feels like ice crystals battering her face rather than the typical warm grains she is used to. Louise is clearly hanging out with an idiot. Though she knew that already.

She screams his name, but her voice is lost in the wind, and that infuriates her even more. She pumps her legs faster, and sand spurts out behind her in an arc. She can see his tall silhouette closer now, a chuckling shadow bobbing near the water's edge.

At last she collides with him, her head slamming into his chest with satisfying force. The ocean laps hungrily at their shoes, and for an awkward few seconds they dance and twist away from the icy water. Once they're back on the drier sand, Louise plants a slap on his cheek that leaves her palm tingling and one side of his face a tomato red.

"Don't you know that kicking sand in someone's face is a dick move?" Louise demands.

He shrugs. "And slapping someone's face is not?"

"No, not when that someone kicked _sand_ in—"

Logan cuts her off, spinning away and heading farther down the shoreline. Since her hand somehow inexplicably ended up holding his, she has no choice but to be whisked right along with him.

"Whatever," she sighs after a minute, just to kill the silence. "Just as long as you never steal my bunny ears again."

"Why the heck would I do that? Then I'd just have to call you Two Ears, and that wouldn't be any fun."

They walk along for a while, hands clasped and sand sneaking into their socks. They skirt around clumps of snow while filling their lungs with crisp, salty air. After some uncalculated amount of time, the two stop and gaze out at the dark, star-speckled horizon. The moment is so cliché, it actually makes her feel a little nauseous.

"You look like a Founding Father with your hair like that, y'know," Logan pipes up suddenly as they turn to face each other. Before she can protest, he reaches out and pulls out the threadbare holder from her ponytail. As his fingers glide through her hair, she stiffens and grinds her teeth a bit. The feeling doesn't go away even after he's no longer touching her and her hair has fallen down on her back, long and wavy. She hates having her hair down— those stupid thick curls she inherited from her dear mother are impossible to tame with any straightener on the planet.

"Gee, thanks," Louise says, watching him flick the worn-out ponytail holder into the Atlantic. She fidgets and yanks down her bunny ears as far as they will go, until they're practically covering her eyes. Logan observes this and doesn't say anything.

 _"Isn't it about time to get rid of that silly hat now?"_

 _"You're too old to be wearing that ratty old thing."_

 _"Can't you at least wear a beanie or something in place of that?"_

He doesn't say a word. Until he does.

"What are your plans after graduation?"

Woah. She wasn't expecting _that_.

"I dunno," she mumbles. "I mean… I'll probably stick around town. Work at the restaurant. Probably run it or something further down the road."

He massages the stubble on his face and doesn't speak for a moment. His eyes are shifty as they drift out towards the ocean. "I… I'm probably not gonna be here for long."

She tries not to let her face fall too much. But she can't stop her heart from tumbling all the way down to her feet. "But you just came back," she points out.

"Yeah, and my mother wants nothing to do with me _still_. I don't have enough cash to pay my next rent, but…"

"My dad can get you a job! It'll be easy!" She hates how desperate she sounds. It's like she is grasping onto thin air, clinging to something just not there— not possible.

Logan crouches down to meet her eyes better. She had never caught the growth spurt bug her siblings did, so she remains the fierce five-foot-two she reached back in middle school.

"Listen, Four Ears, I… I know what I'm about to say might be a lot. Maybe even too much. But… I have just enough money for gas, and that can get me many miles away from this place. Or… that could get _us_ many miles away from this place. D- do you get what I'm saying?"

She nods. "Of course I get it, my skull isn't quite as thick as yours." Her voice is trembling, however, so the insult is hollow and he squashes it effortlessly with another one of those signature smirks.

Her heart has risen again, but it's unsure. She's teetering on the edge of something here— she can feel the electricity of this moment buzzing through her veins. She doesn't even have to squint in the dark to make out those blue crystals on that stupid ugly face of his.

"Well?" he finally asks. She has no idea how long they have been quietly standing there, leaning back and forth on this prophetical cliff edge. Louise has no idea whether or not she wants to fall off it. When she still doesn't respond, Logan drops onto one knee in the sand and starts, "Louise Belcher, will you pretty-pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top run away with me?"

"Ugh, get up, you imbecile," she says, and he obeys. "Fine."

"What?"

Louise crosses her arms and scowls into those electric eyes. "I said yes, dumbass."

His puzzled smirk splits into a wide smile, and she falls. She is enveloped into his arms as they crash into the sand and the warmth fills her from her toes to the ends of her hair, this thrilling energy that blazes from one mouth to another. This is the kiss she has been waiting for.

Icy water nips at her elbow, and with a screech she leaps up. She catches a glimpse of him, a flash of lemon-yellow hair in the darkness, and then her ears are gone from her head.

By the time they make it back to his car, panting like dogs and sweating under their heavy clothes, she isn't sure if the bunny ears have made it back onto her head or if they're now containing a tousled mop of blond locks. But then the front seats are reclined and she's being pressed against the cool window and now her torso is bare, and the way he holds her feels incredible; she fits him like a glove. The car is warm now, and the stars loll through the windshield as her eyes roll back into her head, and never in her life has she been more excited to escape this town.

 **oo0oo**

 _"I can't," she says._

 _The arms he had been holding up drop. He stays on the one knee, frozen and eyes wide. "Wh— what? Why not?"_

 _"I told you, Bush, I'm planning on staying here after I graduate hell school. My dad and I have already been talking about me taking over the business in the future." She shrugs helplessly. "I can't just_ leave _."_

 _His gaze narrows. "What are you scared of? You really want burger-flipping to be your only future?"_

 _"Sorry, but that's the family business I was born into," Louise snaps. "We're a burger-flipping family. Well, except for… Tina and Gene. But—"_

 _"Exactly! Your brother and sister have gone on to do other things. I always thought you would too. Didn't everyone?"_

 _Louise crosses her arms, tucking her frosty fingers under her armpits. "I guess you were the only one who didn't get the memo."_

 _Finally Logan stands, and he cracks his knuckles awkwardly. "Well," he says._

 _The ocean's roar drowns out the words that neither are willing to say. They're stuck in a stalemate. They search each other's faces, confused blue meeting stubborn green. After an eon or two, Logan steps forward and takes one of her hands._

 _"You're not letting this go, are you?" he murmurs._

 _"I told you, I can't," she repeats._

 _"But you can stand to let me go?" His voice cracks on the last word, and her heart twists. She hates this feeling engulfing her. She wants to run out into the sea's depths and let the murkiness flood her lungs. She wants to run across the sandy expanse again and tear off Tina's beat-up old Converse and bury her feet in the wet sand and watch all the little sand-dwelling creatures scramble to burrow back in between her toes. She wants to jerk her head back far enough to break her neck and feel that perfect scream tear up her throat and reverberate in her skull. She wants anything but this._

 _"I…" The words die on her tongue, and he nods affirmatively, as if all the jumbled sentences she wishes she could say are contained in that single letter._

 _"I'll see you later, Four Ears," Logan tells her. His hand slips away, his touch falling like sand through her fingers. When he turns to go, he doesn't look back._

 _It takes her two hours to wander her way back home. It is past midnight and her birthday is quite over. She drags herself up the stairs to her family's apartment, and feels like she is in a foreign place. What happened to the sound of Tina's keyboard clacking away, or the weird guttural noises Gene would make to "warm-up his throat for the beautiful exercise of song," or the soft conversation exchanged between Bob and Linda from the kitchen over cups of lukewarm decaf?_

 _Louise knows her parents must be in their bedroom asleep by now. They can't stay up as late as they used to. She creeps into her tiny room, pulling off her ears and collapsing into bed with sandy grit prickling in her socks._

 _She doesn't understand. Somehow she still fell, but this time there are no arms to catch her._


	2. smile when i kiss you

"Oh, I'm so proud of you, honey!" Linda gushes, pulling her youngest child into a suffocating embrace. Her Jersey accent is even more thick through her tears.

Louise makes a strangled noise and manages to worm her way out of her mother's death grip. She offers Linda a stiff smile and dips her head. "Well, it was nice knowing ya, Mom. Now if I could just—"

"Where do you think you're going, little lady?" Linda stands on her tiptoes, glancing distractedly over Louise's shoulder. "Your father should be back with your brother and sister any second, just wait…"

Louise follows her gaze, turning only to be subjected to another round of rib-shattering hugs. Her nauseatingly-ugly graduation cap is swiped from her head and is now balancing upside down on Gene's head. Louise instinctively jerks a hand upward to cover her exposed head, then wonders why she's responding to a habit she supposedly broke years ago.

"Congrats, lil sis," Tina tells her in her typical monotone. Even after all these years, the eldest Belcher kid still struggles to insert any emotion in her voice. The genuine grin on her face is able to overshadow her bored tone, however, and Louise can't help but smile back.

On the other hand, Gene is a vibrant ball of energy. The spark in his eyes is as bright as his yellow button-down. He spins Louise's cap on his head like it's a record and he's the DJ. He greets his younger sister with their memorized handshake, letting out a hiss through his teeth as they wiggle their fingers away from each other. "The baby's not a baby anymoreeee," he sings gleefully, bowing to the nonexistent applause.

Bob is trying his best not to cry, but everyone already knows it's a lost cause. He sniffs, wiping his quivering mustache and pulling Louise into a tight one-armed hug. "You've done well, Louise," he says. "Really well." Her father has always been a man of few words, and Louise has the feeling that there is so much more he wants to say.

In a way, she is relieved he doesn't say any more.

"Alright, alright, you three, squeeze in for a picture!" Linda calls out. She pulls out her crappy five-year-old iPhone and turns it horizontally, aiming it at the kids.

Louise is sucked into the middle, Tina the author on her left and Gene the music producer on her right. Arms are woven together behind backs and hastily Louise's cap is returned to her head. She feels weird standing between her siblings as the harsh sunlight dazzles their squinting eyes.

Tina and Gene have grown so tall, yet Louise remains so short. Like her sister, Tina grew out her hair over the years, but it is pencil-straight and paper-thin. Thank god she ditched the bangs. As for Gene, well… he grew out his hair too. He likes to keep it tied back in a low ponytail, and somehow it matches his goatee in a non-child-molester kind of way. Meanwhile, Louise misses the days when she could wear pigtails and bunny ears without being asked how old she is.

Her siblings also still sport the Belcher paunch (she's a twig) and the Belcher brown eyes (hers are a swampy so-called "green.") Louise lets the sun burn her eyes and thinks about how in the Belcher jigsaw puzzle, she is the piece that looks like it should fit, but doesn't quite attach right.

Linda has just finished snapping her nonstop stream of fifty versions of the same photo when a familiar blond beanpole comes sauntering up.

"Hey guys!" Logan greets them. He plucks the cap off Louise's head and puts it on his own instead. "Yeesh, never thought I would wear one of these things again."

"I'm amazed you ever got to wear one in the first place," she shoots back. "Now, where are they?"

"Louise! Be nice to Blondie," Linda chides. She looks to Bob for backup, but he is too busy watching Logan carefully through slitted eyes.

Logan laughs and produces the bunched-up bunny ears from the pocket of his shorts. "Yeah, Lou, why are you so mean to me?" He tosses them over to her, and she pulls them on with a content grunt.

"Because your face is so grotesque I can't help but react strongly," Louise informs him. Gene lets out a low whistle and Tina rolls her eyes. Logan steps closer and leans down so that their noses are almost touching.

"How strongly will you react to this?" He captures her lips for a few seconds that are cut short by a loud cough from Bob. Logan pulls back and awkwardly clears his throat.

"Seems like someone reacted strongly, and it wasn't me," Louise teases. She reaches up to flick his earlobe and grab her graduate cap back.

Twenty minutes later, they're making out in his shitty white Hyundai while her family searches for them in the crowd.

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise stirs the swirl of cream into her coffee and ponders folding herself up into the smallest speck possible in this booth._

 _Her graduation gown has been uncomfortable for several hours now, but there are currently no signs of a chance for her to take it off anytime soon. The diner she and her family are eating at is open twenty-four hours, seven days a week and at the rate Linda is blabbering, they will be here for every last minute of that._

 _"…_ _and I remember the day she was born. Bobby, do you remember?" Linda clinks her fork against her empty plate. "The car got stuck in a snowdrift and you had to carry me the last two blocks to the hospital!" She laughs loudly enough to make nearby patrons glare at their booth. "No, no, wait! And then— then when she came out, she didn't cry or anything. I thought my baby was dead, but nope! She just wasn't in the mood for cryin'." Linda leans over the table to give Louise's hand a squeeze. "That's Louise for ya. What a tough cookie."_

 _The youngest Belcher's cheeks are so hot, it feels like there are stove burners being pressed against them. It's a blessing her blush doesn't show easily._

 _"_ _Yeah, thank you so much, Mom, for sharing that heartwarming tale," Louise says. She swallows a bite of cheesecake and glances at her father for support. If Bob can swoop in before Linda opens her mouth again, everyone will be a lot more comfortable._

 _Bob takes the hint and drums his fingers on the table. "So! Um, everyone, I have an important announcement to make regarding our recent high school graduate."_

 _"_ _Shit," Louise mutters under her breath. Gene chirps, "Wonder who that could be!"_

 _"_ _Louise," her dad says, meeting her eyes seriously across the stained table. "I am hoping this won't come as much of a surprise to you, but… uh, where we're standing at right now, it looks like you will be my successor as head honcho of the restaurant."_

 _Linda and Gene cheer, and Tina claps her hands as enthusiastically as she can muster. "Yeah, Louise!"_

 _She leans back casually and nods. "Sounds like a plan, padre. How long 'til the Belcher fortune is mine?"_

 _Bob rolls his eyes. "Very funny. There's still a lot of training you need to go through first, and—"_

 _"_ _We're not dead yet, sweetie!" Linda interrupts. "We still got another six months in us, at least."_

 _"_ _Wow, I'm glad you're so… enthusiastic about our future, Lin," Bob responds dryly. He then returns his stare to Louise. "Listen, I understand that this may seem like a lot of pressure to you. And if this isn't what you want to do, I also understand. If you wanna go to college, we'll find the money somewhere to pay for it."_

 _"_ _Nah, college is for the Tinas of the world," Louise says. "You didn't need college, so why should I? Let's do this thing!" She places her hand palm up in the center of the table, and one by one her parents stack their hands on top of hers._

 _When she finally escapes the confinement of the diner many hours later, the first thing she does is change into jeans and a t-shirt and sweep her hair back with the yellow ponytail holder she's used for eight years._

 _She starts to make her way down the stairs, but forgets to avoid the creaky floorboard. Bob yells, "Where ya headed, Louise?"_

 _"_ _Out."_

 _"_ _To…?"_

 _"_ _Rudy's," she answers impatiently. With that, she slips out the front door and runs the six blocks to Regular-Sized Rudy's rather humble dwelling._

 _She grapples with the crab apple tree that stretches up to his bedroom window. She digs her fingers into the rough bark and completely tears up the fingernails her mother had meticulously manicured. She pulls one of the bitter apples free from its branch and throws._

 _It hits his window with an unmistakable thunk before tumbling not-so-gracefully to the ground. Louise is poised to jump from tree to window sill, and doesn't hesitate when he heaves his window open and punches out the crusty old screen._

 _"_ _Louise!" he pants. He's always panting. He moves aside as she clambers in. The neckline of her shirt droops lazily, exposing one tanned shoulder. She can already see the beads of sweat sprouting on his forehead. His need for her is so palpable, she can't resist showing off what little resources she has. It honestly makes her knees turn into Jell-O too._

 _Rudy is a bit brawnier than in their fourth grade days. He grew into himself finally around freshman year, and now the size of his ears match the rest of his body. His red hair is thicker than the peach fuzz it had been closely cropped to years ago. The stormy gray of his eyes, in fact, seems to be the only similarity he shares with his ten-year-old counterpart. Oh, and the asthma._

 _"_ _Hey, Rudes," she greets him. Louise doesn't waste any time lounging back on his bed, but has to push aside numerous open textbooks in order to do so. She takes in the cover of one for a moment, then chuckles. "So, college, huh?"_

 _"_ _Heh. Yep, college." He rocks back and forth on his heels, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his lame cargo shorts. "I, um, got into Montclair State. So… that's something."_

 _"_ _Ooh, fun." She tosses the heavy book aside and snuggles back into his pillows. "C'mere."_

 _His eyes expand slightly, but he fulfills her request, shuffling over to the bed and sitting beside her. She sits up and smirks at him._

 _"_ _What… what is it, Louise?"_

 _She cups his cheek with one hand. Her thumb fits perfectly along his jawbone. A shaky breath whistles through his nose. She leans in and connects her lips experimentally with his._

 _It's so gentle. He begins kissing back after a second of hesitation, and while he's not unlike the other boys she has been with, he's also not the same. He doesn't try to shove his tongue down her throat, and there isn't slobber dripping down their chins. She likes running her fingers through the freshly-buzzed hair at the nape of his neck. He follows her lead and plunges his hands into her hair. The way he fumbles makes his lack of experience painfully obvious… and this is a comfort to her._

 _When they separate, there's a silly smile on his face. "Wow," he breathes. He has to take a few quick breaths before continuing. "I never realized that… you still… liked me that way."_

 _"'_ _Course I do. You're my best friend. I care about you or whatever," she replies. Some guilt pricks at her a second later, though. She had, admittedly, neglected her favorite balloon-head for the year and a half Logan was back in town. That had been such a whirlwind, she can barely remember it now. But thinking about him makes her want to scream, so she grabs the nearest tangible object— the aforementioned balloon-head— and contains that scream in another long, neat kiss._

 _Rudy chuckles and pants when they pull apart again, "Damn, and I thought that kiss when we were nine was good."_

 _Louise scoffs. "That was a million years ago, dude. That kiss was way too elementary. Now we can move on to the more complex stuff." She gives his buff upper arm a squeeze. "Hm?"_

 _"_ _Oh! I- I see what you m— yeah." She half expects him to reach for his inhaler, as he is clearly overwhelmed. But he manages to overcome his breathlessness just in time to reintroduce his lips to hers. Rudy's the instigator this round? Shit. Some blood rushes into her cheeks, and she falls back on the pile of pillows. She peels open one eye for a brief moment, noticing the cliché glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on his ceiling, and the boyish trim on the wall (which consists of an assortment of sports balls— at least half of which he has surely never touched in his life), and the way his mouth is curled up in a happy little grin as he kisses her. She slides her eye back shut and loses herself for a while._

 _When they both return to Earth, he rolls onto his back from where he had been straddling her so that they are now side-by-side._

 _"_ _Your bunny ears," he pants._

 _"_ _What about them?" she pants._

 _"_ _You're not wearing them." Curious gray eyes shift over towards her. "Did you lose them?"_

 _She shakes her head, and in her peripheral she can see his gaze dart up to the fake stars._

 _"_ _I decided to just be Two Ears," she says after a minute._

 _"_ _What?" He shifts a little, and gives a clueless laugh. "Okay."_

 _The two lay in silence for many minutes, as dusk fades and the moon takes up residence outside. The stars on his ceiling start to give off a weak glow. She picks at a frayed part in her jeans and waits._

 _"_ _Um, do you maybe… wanna date me?" Rudy asks. "I- I'm sorry, it's kinda a lame way to ask, but, uh—"_

 _"_ _Sure," she says. And in her peripheral, that goofy grin again creates a slight dimple in his cheek._

* * *

 **thanks for the favorites and review! it is much appreciated.**


	3. i don't care

Louise rolls the window the entire way down, and the wind commences its game of tousling her hair. She leans on an elbow and sticks her head out into the rushing air. The open road is a tough opponent to hold a shrieking contest with, but she remains valiant. Trees, grass, and sky zoom by in a single blur. Tears gather in her eyes so she squeezes them shut.

"Stop being a fuckin' idiot and put your head back in the car, Four Ears!" Logan yells.

With a disgruntled eye roll, she leans back in and crosses her arms.

"I was joking, dude. Go on, keep being a fuckin' idiot," he snorts.

She flips him off and returns to her competition.

By the time they pull into a gas station, her throat is raw and ears ringing, but the smile on her face has never been wider. Logan eases the car into a parking space, and she hops out before the engine is shut off.

"So what state are we in again?"

"I think we just crossed into North Carolina or something, I dunno," he says while scratching his head.

"I haven't been this far away from New Jersey in so long," Louise notes. "And it feels _incredible_! My energy is up, my skin is clear— I just feel less like shit than ever before. I swear, there was something about that stupid town."

Logan tosses his head to get the bangs out of his eyes. "Or maybe it was just something about you."

She props her elbows on the car's roof to better look at him. "Hey, if you flip your hair like that one more time, I'm afraid I'll have to flip you all the way back to 2003 where that haircut belongs."

"You're only saying that because you like it so much," he argues.

"False."

He bends farther over the roof to thrust his shit-eating grin in her face. "Admit it, Belcher. You like my Bieber hair. It makes you weak in the knees. It makes your heart stutter, and your palms sweaty—"

Louise strains to reach his lips over the small car, and has to lift herself off the ground slightly in order to. It's not the best kiss they've had, and she retreats with a wince. "That felt like I fell and scraped my face on the sidewalk. Please tell me you brought a razor."

He sighs and shows her a small bag. "Yes, your highness, I remembered. I'm gonna go shave in the bathroom now. Buy me a blue Gatorade, would ya?"

"Whatever," she answers, because "sure" is a difficult word to come by in her vocabulary. "Dark blue, right?"

"Yep, there's absolutely no better flavor." They enter the quick mart, and he sneaks another bristly peck onto her cheek before disappearing into the men's room.

She walks unceremoniously over to the drinks area, and chooses the dark blue Gatorade out of the cooler. "All taste the same, anyway," she mutters. It is once she has picked out another diabetes drink for herself, paid for the things, and gone to lean on the car's front hood when her phone buzzes.

Louise picks up. "What?"

"Louise," Bob's voice crackles into her ear. "Please tell me you're somewhere safe."

"Hm," she grunts, perusing her surroundings. They're in a pretty rural area, so the gas station is almost deserted. One guy is standing next to a crappy station wagon at the gas pumps, smoking a cigarette and staring directly at her. She shoots him a look and turns away. "Yeah. Seems safe enough to me."

"Louise…"

"Dad."

"Louise, you—" Her father is cut off abruptly, and in the background she can hear a hushed negotiation, likely over who gets to talk to the problem child next. At last a conclusion is reached, and Bob sighs into the phone, "Your mother wants to speak with you. Here she is."

Not even a millisecond after he finishes talking, Linda is practically shouting into the phone. "Louise, honey! Where are you?"

"Safely within the borders of our good country and thankfully heading in the opposite direction of Canada."

"Oh, my baby. We miss you more than you know, you know!"

Her mother's tone is so flat and lacking in vigor, like a deflated balloon. Louise slumps a little and has an inner battle with herself. _Don't cave. Don't cave. Don't cave._

"Yeah, well… I'll be back someday. Probably." She notices Logan emerge from the restroom inside. Her heart pumps annoyingly faster, despite his image being distorted through the smudgy and poster-covered glass of the quick mart. "Listen, Mother, I gotta go."

"Wait, wait! Don't you wanna talk to your—"

Logan collapses beside her on the car's hood. His face is silky smooth now, and he's rubbing his jawbone with a suggestive glance.

"I'll call you later, Mom," Louise says. She retracts the phone from her ear, and watches her empty promise disappear along with the not-very-flattering image of Linda wearing fake reindeer antlers a couple Christmases ago.

She instantly attaches her mouth to his, like they're magnetic. They pull back and together, they twist open the caps of their drinks. Plastic thunks against plastic and they throw their sugar water back.

"Cheers," he says once they've gulped down over half of the bottles.

"You're supposed to say that _before_ we drink, dummy."

As they pull out of the parking lot a minute later, the creep with the station wagon gives Louise an army salute. "Nice bunny ears, lil' lady!"

 **oo0oo**

 _The booths in her father's restaurant are just as mysteriously sticky as always, and Louise silently revels in this unexplained stickiness. It's so comfortingly familiar. It's her childhood. She slouches further against the wall, stretching her legs out and crossing her ankles. Dirty untied sneaker laces swing freely close to the worn linoleum floor._

 _Across the table from her sit Tina and Gene. Both are displaying their typical mannerisms; Tina stiff as a board and frowning while scrolling on her phone, and Gene fearlessly showing off all his quirks. He's working his fingers along the table's edge, drumming along to a beat only heard inside his head. Louise hopes there's a brain under all that shaggy hair of his, but she can't be sure._

 _It's ass o'clock in the morning, the exact time Bob ordered for Louise to be awake and downstairs for her first "official" day of training. She roped her siblings into this too— after all, it's the first week in ages these two are home and Louise better spend every second she can with them, right? Right._

 _When Louise turns her head and studies the two oddballs sitting to her left, she feels like it's nine or ten years ago all over again. Literally nothing has changed. Well, except Gene is no longer sneaking little nose-picking sessions every other minute. But still— identical to what her nine-year-old self would be looking at. She can't decide whether she likes this or not._

 _"Are you excited for your first day, Louise?" Tina finally pipes up. "I heard Dad's gonna be training you hard. Buckle up, sister."_

 _"Yeah, yeah, pretty sure it's nothing I haven't seen before. I've been working here pretty much since I was tall enough to see over the counter." Louise shrugs. "I've been waiting tables, washing dishes, and assembling burgers since I was like eight or nine. I started using the grill at twelve or so. Cash register at thirteen. What else is there to know? Seems basic enough to me."_

 _Gene heaves a sigh and quits drumming the table. "Mhm, mhm, very interesting things you're discussing, ladies. Now can we puh-leese get to the juicy stuff?"_

 _Louise squints at him. "What juicy stuff?"_

 _Her brother chuckles and clasps his hands together as if he's a top executive. "Ahem. I seek permission to broach the subject of… Logan Bush."_

 _"Permission denied," Louise snaps immediately._

 _"Ah, I see what you were getting at with juicy. Logan's butt is fair competition for Supreme Over All Other Butts."_

 _Louise groans loudly at Tina's comment and slides further down in the booth. "I am so glad you two have matured with adulthood."_

 _"Thank you," Tina says earnestly._

 _"Oh, come on! What's the deal with good ol' Barry Bush, huh?" Gene argues. The way he skates right over everything Louise just said makes her bristle angrily. She meets him with a cool stare that, unfortunately, does nothing to faze him._

 _"You totally rejected him out of nowhere!" Gene continues with his ill-focused rant. "It's just so baffling because it really seemed like the two of you had hit it off. Now we haven't seen him in the six months since your birthday and—"_

 _Louise swings her legs off the booth and slams her forearms on the table. "Will. You. Just. Listen. To. Me! I do not want to talk about him, okay? He's in my past, and he should be in your past too!"_

 _Her brother throws his arms up in exasperation. "You gotta give us at least one reason!"_

 _She locks her narrowed eyes onto his big, cuddly brown ones and has the feeling those cuddly brown eyes won't back down without a fight. So she caves, but only partially._

 _"Look, I… I told him no because I didn't want to sour our friendship." Louise leans back again and tries to smooth her feathers. "That's literally all. Happy?"_

 _"Hmmm," Tina muses with eighty percent of her focus still on her phone._

 _"Honey, the only sour thing here is you! How could a relationship have ruined things? Sour? Romance is anything but! Romance is sweet, and soft, and—"_

 _She crosses her arms. "I did not say this is open for discussion. I'm not talking about him anymore, Gene. I've moved on."_

 _Instantly she regrets saying those last three words. Gene's eyes light up and even Tina perks, locking her phone and placing it face-down on the table._

 _"Who is he?" Gene demands._

 _"Or she. We don't judge," Tina adds._

 _Louise slumps over, throwing her arms behind her head and practically mashing her face into the table out of frustration. "Nobody," she mumbles. The word, however, is so distorted neither sibling can make it out._

 _"Huh?"_

 _She lifts her head and screams, "No one!"_

 _"No one what?"_

 _To Louise's utter dismay, Linda and Bob choose this moment to finally enter the restaurant. Even their parents look disgruntled being up this early, and her father wastes no time setting a pot of coffee to brew._

 _"Come on, Louise, you gotta tell us now! Everyone is here," Gene says._

 _She wishes she was born a thousand years in the future, when shooting daggers out of your eyes should be possible._

 _"Tell us what?" Bob asks._

 _"Come on!" Gene prods. "Don't you dare deny the opportunity!"_

 _The stress has been building up gradually within Louise for the past several minutes. Now the simmering pot is boiling rapidly and nearing the edge, threatening to spill over. She pulls her fingers back into fists, the skin stretched so taut over her knuckles she wonders if it'll break. Her tongue is itching to just tell them, dammit, what's the worst that could happen?_

 _The worst that could happen is anything, though. The Belchers are the absolute worse that could happen, and right now Louise is surrounded by the entire clan of her mischievous flesh and blood._

 _Yet before she can control herself, she slips. Just like a bar of soap in the shower, she falls and slides around aimlessly and becomes a dented and mushy mess._

 _"I-started-dating-Regular-Sized-Rudy-two-days-ago-and-I-really-really-didn't-want-you-guys-to-know-but-here-we-are-so-great-I-guess," she says, speeding through the words at an Olympic pace._

 _Gene manages to catch the name woven in there, and a wide smile erupts on his chubby face. "Oh my god! You and Rudy? Rudy? Regular-Sized Rudy? Strangers to Acquaintances to Friends to Best Friends to Lovers: The Epic Saga! I can see it all now…"_

 _"Okay, Gene, let's take it down a few notches," Bob suggests._

 _Linda makes an inhumane noise and clasps her hands together excitedly. The apron she'd been tying behind her back falls to the floor. "Ahh, this is so exciting! My baby finally has a boy toy of her own. How cute! Isn't that cute, Bobby?"_

 _Tina arches her brow and starts, "What do you mean? She's had other boy—"_

 _"Ah, ah, ah, Tina, you might wanna get that terrible rambling disease checked out. Ahem," Louise cuts in. She slides out of the booth and marches up to the counter, catching the apron her father tosses her. A cup of black coffee is also slid across the counter, and she slurps it up gratefully._

 _"Ooh, you and Rudy could go on double dates with your father and I! Wouldn't that be fun?" Linda asks. Enthusiasm is oozing out of her every pore, and it makes Louise nauseous._

 _"Alright," Bob says stiffly. He takes Louise's shoulder and directs her into the kitchen. "Let's start with you making a classic burger."_

 _"'Kay," Louise mutters, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. She forms a patty from the freshly ground meat and drops it onto the hot grill._

 _Bob stands just behind her with his burly arms crossed. His breath is hot on her neck, and it makes her fidget a little. "Remember the special acronym: BMLTEE—"_

 _"Bun, meat, lettuce, tomato, everything else," she drones._

 _"Perfect." There is a moment of silence, and she notices her dad glance through the window to make sure Linda isn't nearby. Then he says in a low voice, "I always thought that Rudy kid would be a good match for you. Guess you could say he's the sweet to your sour, eh?" He gives her a playful nudge and chuckles at his terrible "joke."_

 _Louise presses her spatula against the sizzling burger. Her cheeks are hotter than the stove's surface and she wishes dearly the corners of her mouth would stop tugging upward._

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	4. forget everything

**WARNING: mild & awkwardly written sexual content in this chapter**

* * *

Once they hit Florida, they turn westward. The little white car scuttles along faithfully as its odometer closes in on 200,000 miles. Logan plans to mark the momentous occasion with a six-pack of Budweiser shared on top of the ratty blanket in the trunk.

"There's this place in Louisiana," he explains from the passenger seat, hands waving all over the place, "it's near Baton Rouge, and they say it's like the tenth best place in the country with a clear view of stars at night."

She watches him with a snort. "Wow, _tenth_ best? What a marvel. And where did you even get the idea that I like stargazing?" When she shifts her eyes back to the road, she can still feel his gaze hot on her cheek.

"Just a lucky guess," he says.

"We'll see about that." Louise refuses to let herself cave and smile for him, but her hands are a sweaty, slippery mess on the steering wheel. Why, oh why did she have to get her dad's overactive sweat glands?

After about another hour of driving, she pulls over at a Walmart. She kills the engine and leans back in the seat with one eyebrow quirked and a devilish smirk perched on her lips. "Alright, you better be ready, Bush."

"I am so fucking ready," he hisses through his teeth, and her stomach flips.

"Whoever can mastermind the best prank"— his face lights up, but she lifts a finger and places it over his mouth— " _without_ getting caught in the act wins…"

Logan bites her finger, and she retracts it with a startled gasp. "Whoever wins gets to have sex in the place of their choosing. Absolutely _anywhere_."

Louise groans as she kicks open her door and climbs out. "Damn, does the sex have to be with _you_ or can we pick our partner too?"

His response is running ahead into the superstore with a middle finger proudly displayed behind his back. She yells and races after him.

By the time she gets inside, he is out of sight. Louise swears under her breath and marches onward, weaving between various aisles while ideas brew in her brain.

First she heads for the canned goods aisle, running her fingers over all the rounded labels until she finds a nice big can of tomato puree. Then she runs over to the feminine hygiene aisle and, after puncturing the lid of the tomato can with her pocket knife and some upper arm strength, discreetly pours a lumpy trail down the entire aisle leading to the conveniently-located bathrooms a few feet away. She almost gets away with it, but then a woman enters the aisle right as Louise is shoving the can deep into the shelf out of view.

"Um," she laughs, making awkward eye contact with the stranger. "Looks like someone had a little emergency, huh?" With that, she speeds out.

She makes a few laps around the store, thinking. As she wraps back to the front, she approaches the help desk with a terrified expression plastered on her face.

"S- sir? Excuse me?" she stammers.

The employee glances down at her, face softening like he's made of butter— what an idiot. "Yes, miss? How can I help you?"

"I- I lost my little brother… could you page him for me, please?"

"Oh, uh… sure. Could you give me his name?"

Louise paces to ensure a more believable performance. "Oh god, oh god… I hope he's okay. Um, his name is Richard, but we all call him Dick. Trust me, it's what he prefers. Oh, a- and our last name is Wilt."

The employee lifts an eyebrow, sighs, and somehow he still goes for it. "Could a… Dick Wilt… please report to the front of the store? Your sister is looking for you." His eyes slide over to her, narrowed and burning, before he repeats into the microphone, "Dick Wilt to the front of the store, please."

Louise is doubled over the entire time the intercom is booming, and by the time the employee turns back to question her, she's already gone.

The rest of her pranks are all Belcher family classics. She grabs a can of shaving cream and a jar of peanut butter and goes wild. Smeared on an old lady's cart handle, on a jerky jock's perky ass, on the bathroom door knobs, so on and so forth.

She runs into Logan in the toy area. He's messing with a pack of balloons, and she approaches from behind to wipe an overflowing handful of shaving cream in his hair.

"Dammit, Four Ears!" he yells before even turning around. He takes some and shakes his hand in the air, effectively flicking some back onto her. She kicks his shin and he winces, hopping awkwardly like an injured puppy while holding his leg. "Alright, alright, touché. Did you get caught?"

"I'm still in the store, am I not?" she asks with her arms crossed.

"Wow. Not too shabby. And I'm assuming the 'Dick Wilt' thing was courtesy of you?"

"Yep. What all did you do?"

He sits down on the cold white linoleum and pats the area next to him. She accepts the invite and joins him on the floor.

Logan flips his stupid bangs out of his eyes and smirks. "Oh, I only pretended to be a mannequin for forty-five minutes, scared the shit out of several people, and snuck boxes of condoms into peoples' carts. And now I need you to help me with my final act of douchebaggery." He produces a container of red frosting from his jacket pocket and waves it in her face, then tears open the package of balloons.

"What, a frosting balloon fight? Wouldn't wanna be the sucker who has to clean that shit up," she muses.

"No, not quite. I opted for something a little more… original." He picks out a white balloon and stretches it out, then squeezes the frosting inside it until the entire container is empty. She watches him the entire time, noticing the way his one eyebrow is slanted and the tip of his tongue is peeking out from between his lips. It's the recognizable symbol of him actually concentrating for once. She despises how the word "cute" comes to mind when he looks like this.

But then, just as suddenly as they appeared, his eyebrow stops slanting and his tongue disappears back into his mouth. He ties the balloon closed and tosses it in the air a few times gleefully, as if it's a brand-new invention that will cure cancer.

"You, my dear"— she punches his shoulder, effectively wiping that corny word from his small mind— "ow, okay, I deserved that. Anyway, you will be sticking this balloon under your shirt to look preggers, and then I'll trip you, making the balloon pop and your guts spew out. If we can get at least one person to faint, then we _both_ win."

"But we're already tied!" she retorts. "Besides, I have a better idea that can spice up this lame-ass thing. Just follow my lead."

Five minutes later, she has a frosting-filled balloon crammed under her shirt and the two of them are screaming bloody murder. She's being carried in his arms bridal-style as he darts from place to place throughout the store. Louise makes sure to play her part, kicking her legs and waving her arms while letting various obscene words tear up her throat at a volume that ensures every last cinder block and speck of dirt on the premises will hear.

"Won't somebody help us?" Logan shrieks. He zooms over to a man and shakes his arm desperately. "Dude, please! My girlfriend is about to freaking explode, can't you tell?"

"There's a parasite in my stomach!" Louise squirms in his arms and reaches forward to grab the poor guy's shirt collar in her sweaty hands. "Look at me, pal! Look in my eyes! Can't you understand the pain I'm in? There's an alien trying to bust out of me… _fuck_!"

The stranger jerks away and gives them a weird look. "Uh, maybe you're just in labor?"

"He's saying that word again!" Logan breathes, eyes wide and staring at nothing like he's in a stupor. "Just like the rest of them. Auuuugh!" He rips them away from the guy and runs off to the next person.

It takes another few minutes of screaming their throats raw, but eventually an employee comes racing up to them. It just so happens to be the same one Louise tricked into saying "Dick Wilt," and she can't help but snort a little upon seeing him again.

"Hey, it's you again!" The worker— named Brad, according to his name tag— snaps, jabbing a dirty finger at her. "Bunny ears girl! Wait, were— were you pregnant before?" His finger falters, eyes darting from the hidden balloon to her eyes. Then he notices Logan, and his frown deepens. "This guy's name isn't… erm… Richard Wilt, is it?"

His questions are ignored, and with a simple look exchanged between the pranksters, Logan sets the finale into motion. He sobs in Brad's face, whimpering, "I'm not ready to be a father. I can't take this anymore!"

"Woah, woah, buddy, take it easy," Brad says, alarm sparking in his eyes as Logan steps back. "Don't make any rash decisions—"

"I'm not ready!" Logan interrupts him with another ear-piercing caterwaul, and with that he stumbles forward and tosses Louise to the ground, balloon side down.

The balloon bursts beneath her weight immediately upon impact. Frosting sprays everywhere, chunky and perfectly red. Again she lets out another tortured cry worthy of any decent horror film. Louise isn't sure if it's all the frosting or the sweat she's managed to build up on every inch of skin, but she slides a long distance on the floor, speeding past filming cellphones and sickened faces. She stops right before colliding with a laundry detergent display, and to finish the act she lays lifeless as a rag doll.

People rush over to her all in one wave, crouching down, prodding her shoulder, asking if she's okay. She can hear the telltale dial of 9-1-1. In the end, however, the sound of somebody vomiting in the distance makes her break. At first it's small, like tiny cracks appearing in an eggshell— just a smirk curling the corner of her lips upward. Then she completely shatters, sitting up and observing the messy trail she left behind while her chest heaves.

Logan runs up to her and lifts her up, spinning around only to slip and fall on his ass in the frosting. She wriggles free, grudgingly helps him up, and together they speed out of the store with laughter tickling their lungs sore.

"Did you see them?" Louise demands, wiping a tear of joy from one eye. "All standing there with these blank faces like a bunch of freaking robots who just got de-programmed!"

He wraps an arm behind her and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "It was truly a show. We gotta drive this car straight to Hollywood and audition to be actors or however you do it, because we are damn good!" They reach the car, and fall into it at the same time. "Oh, and good news: we _did_ get one chick to faint. The guy who hurled counts as a bonus."

Excitement swirls in her stomach. "I have never been more glad that someone threw up." Louise peels her black t-shirt off and runs a finger along her belly to collect the frosting residue. "So worth it."

His gaze is hot on her like a set of cobalt blue coals. "You seriously weren't wearing a bra this whole time?"

"Eh, what's the point?" Louise shrugs, but angles her torso slightly more towards him. "Why do you ask, do these guys… offend you?" She cups a hand under each breast, as if she can detach them and give them to him as a gift— which would, admittedly, be one hell of a gift considering his frequent and desperate need to have his hands on her chest. Her girls aren't the biggest around— it seems Tina inherited the big-boobs gene from their mother rather than Louise— but Logan loves them anyway. She wouldn't be surprised if he names them someday.

"We gotta drive away from here," Logan says quickly, slamming the gear shift into drive and speeding out of the parking lot fast enough to leave tire marks. For ten very, very long minutes, he drives and searches for a more secluded place. One of his hands is clasped around the wheel while she has his other playing with her closer boob. She wonders where the hell he's taking them, but then his cold fingers flick her nipple and she forgets everything.

At long last, the car shudders up to the nearly-empty parking lot of what looks like a park. He swerves into a parking space, gravel crunching in protest under the tires, then the car is off and he wastes no time getting on top of her.

"Round one is here," she tells him between quick breaths. "Round two will be outside against a tree."

He's running his lips along her bare upper half, but he pauses to scowl up at her. "Who decided that you won?"

"Vomit guy did," Louise says. She jerks a thumb at the window. "Outside. Against a tree."

Logan doesn't answer, and annoyance prickles in her gut. Then his kisses find her lips, warm tongue swiping up last bits of frosting, and she can't recover the breath to persist.

He called her his girlfriend.

 **oo0oo**

 _"It's your last day at home before going to college, come on! We gotta do something big." Louise kicks a pebble on the sidewalk, sending it sailing into the empty street. Her fingers are woven into quite the intricate pattern with his, and she's unsure if they'll ever be able to separate._

 _Rudy gives a half-hearted shrug. "I dunno," he mumbles. "I mean, there's so much I have to prepare tonight. And since neither of my parents can drive me to orientation tomorrow morning, I'll have to drive myself. So please, no wandering the Wharf 'til two in the morning this time."_

 _"Ugh, you sound like a parent," she protests. She jumps in front of him and snatches his other hand. It's still a strange feeling to her, holding hands. When Louise was younger, she never understood the big deal about mashing your lips and privates against someone else's— germ city, right? — nor trying to stick your sweaty fingers in between someone else's sweaty fingers. She quickly discovered the appeal of kissing and sex in high school, but up until recently hand holding was a mystery to her. Until Rudy came along, Louise never realized how particular hands fit her hand better than others. And his hand being in hers felt like the completion of something— it made something within her whole. What that something was, she had yet to discover._

 _"Now," she continues. "I'm going to repeat a basic summary of what you said, and I want you to find the mistakes. Okay?"_

 _He cracks a little smile, the dimples indenting his cheeks. "Okay."_

 _"I have oh-soooo-much work tonight, but what I don't realize is I can easily put it off until tomorrow morning. And even though I say that I have to drive myself tomorrow, Louise can easily do the driving for me. And even though I say I don't want to, I totally absolutely want to wander the Wharf 'till three in the morning."_

 _Rudy rolls his eyes. "Two in the morning, absolute limit."_

 _She leans in so that their noses tap each other. "Two-thirty."_

 _He's putting up a fight. "Two-fifteen."_

 _"Fiiiine," Louise sighs, linking her pinky with his and planting a sloppy kiss on his smirk. "I have definitely tainted you, haven't I?"_

 _He shoves one hand in his pocket and swings his other arm cheerfully. "You definitely have."_

 _Louise watches their connected arms reach up to shoulder level, then fall, then up, then fall again. She wants the image of their sweaty, summer-kissed fingers slicing through the sunlight burned in her brain forever._

 _The beach and Wonder Wharf are far more pleasant in August, but also a lot more crowded. Louise remembers how Linda always used to talk about taking a trip to a more peaceful beach someday, like the Maine shoreline dotted with mist and rocks. That was one of many family trip ideas to fade away after a few meager discussions about it over dinner._

 _Besides, if anything, the beach— any beach— is the last place Louise would want to go on vacation. She's lived a block away from one her entire life! Screw Hawaii and the Bahamas. She likes to imagine mountain climbing as her forte rather than tight bikinis and mimosas adorned with tiny umbrellas._

 _Louise and Rudy run into the Pesto twins after some twenty minutes of dodging running children and hastily-dug "moats" for hastily-built sand castles. Over the years, Andy and Ollie have gained roughly one ounce of maturity, an amount which fluctuates constantly. Most of that one ounce is accounted for by their rocky passage through puberty; deep voices and muscular arms are now the first two things Louise notices about her old classmates rather than annoying one and annoying two. They must have gained some maturity, after all, if they were able to get into college. Their father pressured the twins into applying for the local community college, probably more because he was tired of their shenanigans around his shitty restaurant than his concern for their future. And with nearly identical less-than-stellar grades, Andy and Ollie got in— to Louise's great bafflement. She's still trying to calculate how they graduated high school._

 _"Huh," Andy says, lifting his head from the deep trench he and his brother are for some reason carving into the poor ground. "You two are still together?"_

 _A sour look takes almost no time to emerge on Louise's face. "Nice to see you, too."_

 _"Sorry," Ollie says with a shrug. "I was thinking it, so he said it."_

 _Rudy is quick to steer the conversation in a different direction. "Uh… what are you guys doing?" he asks, nodding at their trench._

 _"Digging a trench to the ocean!" Andy and Ollie chirp at the same time._

 _"Yeah, no shit," Louise snaps. "Here, allow me to ask the more thought-provoking question: why are you digging a trench to the ocean?"_

 _Andy works his shovel back into the sand, throwing a few more scoops of sand over his shoulder as he speaks. "We plan to leave a mark on this town, so we're connecting this trench to the ocean until it is filled with the Atlantic's fierce, swirling water. And then…"_

 _"… then the Gemelos de Pesto River is established!" Ollie says. "Get it? Gemelos is Spanish for twins!"_

 _"Oh… my god," Louise murmurs while face-palming herself._

 _Rudy shifts awkwardly next to her. "Don't you want it to be in Italian?"_

 _They both shake their heads. "Nah, our dad says we're Italianos falsos…"_

 _"… whatever that means!"_

 _When they finally escape the zone of stupidity, Louise and Rudy find themselves back up on the boardwalk, trading licks from a swirl of chocolate soft serve— if only they'd had enough money on them to buy two separate ones, Louise lamented— but his licks are baby bird nibbles and hers are mountain lion chomps._

 _"Are their arms really better than mine?" Rudy asks. The insecurity present in his tone is pathetic enough to make her feel icky._

 _"Who?"_

 _"The Pesto twins." He hands the cone back to her and nudges the short sleeve of his shirt up onto his shoulder so his entire arm is exposed. And, to her amusement, he flexes his bicep. "I- I've been lifting. As much as I'm allowed to, at least. It's a better exercise for me because lifting doesn't tire out my lungs as quickly as jogging, and—"_

 _"Rudes." Louise stops him, unraveling her fingers from his to introduce his unscathed face to her hand._

 _He barely reels from the slap, only chuckling and cradling his now puffy cheek for a moment. "Heh, okay. I'll stop."_

 _"Thank you." She swipes her tongue around the ice cream, collecting every last sneaky drop dribbling down the cone. "Well, great. Now our ice cream's sweatier than Tina before her senior prom. We used two entire packs of napkins dabbing that girl dry!"_

 _He snorts, and the pair walks on in silence, letting their thoughts drown under all the noise and chaos from their fellow boardwalk-goers. Wonder Wharf has definitely seen more visitors this summer than usual. Maybe Fischoeder finally got off his ass, drained his tub of the money he bathes in daily, and used it to—_

 _"Really, though, are they better than mine?" Rudy blurts out. He grits his teeth and braces himself for another hit, but it never comes._

 _Louise shakes her head. "I don't really care about how muscular your arms are, honestly. Why does it matter?"_

 _He hangs his head. "Right."_

 _She studies him for a couple seconds, then stops in the middle of the walkway and clamps one hand down on his shoulder. "But… if it does matter to you, for some unexplainable and ridiculous reason… you're way more nice, and… charismatic, I guess, than them. And those things make up for however smaller your arms may or may not be than theirs."_

 _She doesn't expect him to be making out with her nose immediately after. "Hey, Rudes, I think you're a little off-target—"_

 _He pulls back and grins at her, dimples flashing. "Sorry, you had some ice cream on your nose." Then next thing Louise knows, his lips are right where they belong— joined with hers. She throws the dregs of the ice cream over the railing, sentenced to the gruesome fate of seagull food, and allows him to hoist her up in his arms. Her legs squeeze his sides and her ankles lock behind his back. When, too soon, his pansy-ass lungs convince him to take an air break, she smirks down at his kiss-swollen mouth._

 _"Oh, and you're a way better kisser," she adds._

 _His brows furrow, words chopped up by pants. "What's that… supposed to…" Then Rudy's eyes widen with realization. "Oh, god. When did you mess with those two?"_

 _"A long time ago," Louise whispers. "It was a terrible experience, one of the worst of my life, and I regret it with all my being."_

 _The storm in those gray irises of his is unmistakable. "All together, or one at a time?"_

 _"Separate. Two minutes apart. I was an amateur then." Her fingers ghost over the bristly hairs at the nape of his neck. "Not anymore, though. Nope."_

 _Some strange force begins to tug at the corners of Rudy's mouth. Then out of nowhere, he breaks into a full-out cackle, leaning over as if he's about to hurl onto the weather-beaten wood planks under their feet. A few too many people glare at them, and Louise drags him to a secluded area between gimmicky gift shop buildings. She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and slams him against the cement wall. "Get ahold of yourself! Damn!"_

 _"It's just…" Rudy wheezes helplessly, meeting her scowl through the film of tears covering his eyes. "… so funny. Imagining you— a- and them…? Phew…"_

 _"You are truly unbelievable," she growls._

 _His laughing subsides abruptly, his teasing smile falling into a serious grimace. He takes one of her hands, warm thumb nestling perfectly into place in her palm, and pries her fingers off his shoulder._

 _"Hey," he says softly. "I'm sorry. I was just reminded how we're… very different people."_

 _Louise says nothing. She lets his hand squeeze hers tighter._

 _"You have so much experience and confidence, and I'm the disabled shadow limping after you, trying to keep up." Rudy licks his lips, and Louise notices the faint ring of brown around his mouth, stained by the ice cream._

 _"You're not disabled," she argues. It's weak._

 _"Maybe I'm not, but my lungs sure are. In fact…" He yanks his inhaler out from a pocket, uses it, then drops it back out of view. "Ah, better."_

 _She chews on the inside of her cheek and resists the urge to rest her heavy head on his chest. "If you're insecure, I can help you."_

 _From the way his face loosens, she can tell he knows just what she's implying. The guarded expression he had been wearing dissolves, and genuine fear takes up residence in his eyes._

 _"You don't have to be scared. You don't deserve that. Just let us."_

 _He bites his lip. "Let us what? Lettuce and tomato?"_

 _She somehow manages to avoid rolling her eyes. "I'm serious, Rudes. You're ready, aren't you?"_

 _He lets out a long breath._

 _"I'll be gentle."_

 _They forget wandering the Wharf until two-fifteen in the morning. Never once does his hand separate from hers. Her parents will be over at Teddy's late tonight, she remembers in a daze, and still their hands are stuck together as if with glue, and then he's on top of her bed, mattress bouncing beneath them, her leaving trails of kisses on every exposed inch of his skin. Then his fingers are not in hers anymore, and she feels the empty space there more than ever, and she almost cries because the way he holds the rest of her feels so good._

 _They are connected in so many ways, and her hair is falling down on him like black rain, in little wisps, strands, and curls, and he comments on how green her eyes look, reminds her of how everyone at school always called her the prettiest Belcher, reminds her how she hated that, reminds her how remarkable he thinks she is._

 _She reminds herself to ask him just why they called him "Regular-Sized" Rudy._

* * *

 **i hate myself**


	5. i won't miss you

"Okay, I guess this isn't so bad," Louise admits, stopping and taking a breath while gazing up at the sky. "I wouldn't call it breathtaking or eye-catching or anything, just… _pretty_ , I guess."

"Wow, did you just describe yourself?" Logan snipes back, only to receive a stinging hit on the arm. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry. But we're not even at the place yet! This is just the average sky over the average, boring road. You gotta wait for the real thing."

She leans on the back bumper of the car, panting, and jerks a grubby thumb over her shoulder. "That sign up ahead says we're still ten miles away from the observatory place. At this rate, we'll make it there by September."

"That's not too bad, considering it's the last day of August."

"Shit, is it really?" Louise sits up and extracts her phone from the back pocket of her cutoff shorts. "Oh my god, it is," she says dumbly.

"Lost track of time, huh?" Logan asks.

She fixes a cold glare on him, automatically triggered by his teasing tone. "Yeah, it sure is easy to lose track of time when you're out on a hot, dusty road pushing a certain _somebody's_ broken-down piece of junk car!"

"Who was driving the car when it broke down?" he counters.

Louise throws her tired arms up in the air. "I did not make this thing conk out! It's old and crappy, it was only a matter of time. Jesus."

Logan frowns, shooting her a concerned glance. "Hey, is it shark week?"

"What do you think?" she snaps.

He rolls one shoulder, gaze flitting apprehensively from Louise to the car to the long road ahead. "Don't worry about pushing the car anymore, alright? I'll try and see if I can get a signal to call a tow truck now."

She gives him a grateful grunt and climbs carefully into the backseat of the car. To think of all the things they've done back here— well, if this car could talk and Bob heard, Logan would be six feet under with a spatula shoved down his throat.

Louise leans back, kicking off her flip flops and propping her feet on the ledge by the window. Her eyes roam from one stain on the ceiling to another, connecting the marks like stars in a constellation. If only she had a Sharpie, then this could be a pretty damn cool connect-the-dots game.

If only she didn't have a constant feeling of nausea and persistent, stabbing cramps in her lower abdomen. But one thing is for sure— at least this means she's definitely not pregnant. And thank freakin' god for that.

She hears a long, low groan from outside, and the car rolls forward maybe one more centimeter. It's Logan's own damn fault they're here on this empty road— he'd convinced her to take a more "scenic" route off the main highway. Now they're stuck with no Wi-Fi and a fat chance they'll even see one car drive by this hour.

Louise grits her teeth and sits up after ten or so minutes, sticking her head out the partially rolled down window to yell at the pansy-ass boy behind her. "Hey, dumbass! How about you call it a night and have some fun?"

She kicks open the door and walks around to the back of the car to discover a flushed and breathless Logan. His cheeks have attained a deeper red color than any of her slaps could achieve (well, maybe) and the blue spark in his eyes is not the friendliest.

"Fun?" he demands, gesturing to the deserted road and marsh all around them. "Just where are we supposed to have _fun_ here, Four Ears? Huh?"

Louise is unfazed by his snippy attitude. Silently she takes his sweaty fingers and heaves herself up onto the car's trunk, him following her lead. One more hop, and they're lying on their backs on the roof.

"What are we—"

She tosses a sloppy back-handed slap onto his face to shut him up. Knuckles collide with his nose, and he lets out a grumpy "Ow…" before finally closing his trap for a moment.

"Look at the sky," she commands. "I know you think it's not the 'real deal' or whatever, but just… stop and look for once. Even if we don't have a stupid telescope to look through, it's—"

"The stars are so clear tonight," Logan says. He turns his head and props it on a bent arm to get a better view of her. "Aw, we finish each other's sentences," he adds in an overly sappy tone.

Louise snorts. "That's not what I was gonna say at all, dummy." Her eyes dart over to him, then back to the sky. "Why are you staring at me all creepy like that?"

"Fuck the stars and planets. You're a _much_ more breathtaking view, y'know," he murmurs drowsily. When she glances over again, the blond idiot looks asleep.

She wonders if it's physically possible for human hearts to melt, because that's what it feels like hers is doing right now. Normally her icy cold soul would freeze that stupid thing right back up, but the hormones from her period are literally driving her insane.

"If you actually fall asleep," she begins, voice cracking, "I will actually push you off this car."

"Okay, I'm up!" Logan yelps, but the pep fades away quickly. He nuzzles into her side like a baby animal, though she can tell from the lightness of his breathing that he's not asleep yet.

For a long time, they allow the soothing blanket of silence to wrap around them. Crickets and cicadas chirp from somewhere deep within the long grass. A weightless breeze travels through, stirring their hair and numbing her nose. She gives her bunny ears a firm tug to ensure their security on her head.

"Four Ears…" Logan mumbles. Louise angles her neck to take in his sleepy stupor. At first she thinks he's going through some weird REM sleep, but those impossible-to-miss blue eyes are open at half-mast.

"What?" she replies.

"I was… thinking… about our prank in Walmart last month," he says, words slow and slurred. "How I said I… d- didn't want to be a father."

Her heart rate increases.

"I… I don't." His lazy gaze shifts up to meet hers. "Unless you're the mother."

She is positive her heart is going to explode out of her chest. "Uh… what are you saying?"

Logan's head lolls, and he laughs like he's drunk. "I wanna have kids with you someday… Louise. I- I wanna—"

Then his sentence cuts off, and he is most certainly dozing now. Louise draws in slow, deep breaths and fixes her eyes on the endless, inky black expanse of sky.

She pulls out her phone and stares at the screen for several long seconds. There's all the contact information for her dad, laid out in a flawless order that is unusual for her. His cell. The restaurant. The home landline. His e-mail address, which used to be the shared family e-mail on the shared laptop. And his picture at the top, blurry as ever with a scowl on his face, taken when she surprised him during Thanksgiving prep a few years back.

Louise hasn't called them in a month.

She hasn't heard from her parents in a month.

But it's too late to call, it's an hour later back in New Jersey. They must be in bed by now.

She tries to ignore the chills running down her back and slides her eyes shut.

 **oo0oo**

 _"I don't miss him," Louise grumbles as she plates the burger and slides it through the window to her mom._

 _"Honey, it's okay to feel that way," Linda calls to her. "You're allowed to miss people."_

 _"Yeah, well, I don't need anyone's permission to miss him because I don't miss him. Period." The youngest Belcher tosses her ponytail back over her shoulder and chuckles. "Besides, he is literally only a two hour and twenty-seven minute drive away. So there's no reason for me to—"_

 _She's interrupted by Linda, who returns to the window bearing a teasing smirk and a sing-song voice. "Aw, you know how far away your Rudy is down to the last minute! How long did it take you to Schmoodle that?"_

 _"Google, Mom," Louise groans._

 _"Okay, whatever. Moral of the story is, there is no reason for you to have this tough exterior on. It's perfectly normal to let your guts ooze out a little every now and then, be all smooshy and lovey—"_

 _Louise furiously forms another wad of ground beef into a burger shape, then slams it onto the grill. "I do not miss Rudy, and stop telling me I do!"_

 _Her anger is loud enough to reach the front of the restaurant, where a few customers are peering curiously at the feuding pair. Louise growls and turns her face down to her cooking, while Linda waves her arms and offers the people an awkward smile. "Nothing to see here, guys! All we're doing is sharpening our drama skills, no biggie."_

 _Bob chooses this moment to finally emerge from the bathroom, and Louise breathes a silent sigh of relief. The second her dad left for his daily 4:30, Linda launched her brutal attack. With him back, there's no way the subject could come back up—_

 _"Woah, the tension here is so thick, I can barely breathe. What the hell happened?" Bob asks, retying his apron and grabbing some tomatoes out of the fridge to slice. "Uh, Louise, that burger's gonna char if you don't—"_

 _"— flip it right now. Yep, I got it." If the spatula was a malleable object, her molten fingers would've squeezed it into halves by now. The burger patty flies straight up in the air, spins several successive times like a pinwheel, then slaps down on the raw side with a splat of hot grease._

 _Linda appears again at the window, propping her elbow on the edge and her chin on her hand. "Oh, Bobby, it's nothing. Just our Louise being Louise."_

 _"And there's nothing wrong with me being me, Mother," Louise mutters ominously with fiery green eyes fixated on the burger._

 _Bob rolls his eyes. "I have a guess what, or who, this is about, but I- I'd rather not get into it, so…" He trails off, focusing on washing the tomatoes._

 _"Thank god," Louise comments._

 _And for the next 364 ½ days, she spends her time standing on the familiar worn spot on the floor, eyes watching a sizzling burger patty, fingers drumming on the spatula's handle, hair tamed back into a restrictively tight ponytail. She knows she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. She knows this._

 _And seeing her boyfriend only over Christmas and spring break is okay. Every time the idea of her saddling up the family car for the two hour and twenty-seven minute drive to Montclair arises, there is suddenly a lot of work to do around the restaurant, and Rudy has mountains of exams to worry about. In one year, Louise only makes it up to North Jersey twice. This is fine. She knows this._

 _But everyone around her keeps insisting she must not be okay with this arrangement, that she must feel lonely without Rudy, that she must barely be able to function without her boyfriend glued to her at the hip._

 _Louise reaches her breaking point one day the following October. Her parents are out on a grocery store run to get some ingredients for the Burger of the Day, affectionately named "John Truffle-ta," complete with a hearty helping of fancy sautéed mushrooms atop the burger. At first Louise was ordered to go to the supermarket, but she managed to wrangle her way into staying back at the restaurant and running it herself, for the first time in a while. Might as well prepare all she can for the future, right?_

 _She finishes plating a bacon cheeseburger for Teddy and grabs the platter of cheesy fries for another table, backing into the kitchen door and emerging to the front. Louise trudges up to Teddy and sets down his burger, only to be stopped._

 _"Hey, Louise, we haven't had a good conversation in a while," the old family friend says with an inviting smile. "Why don't you take a break and catch up a bit?"_

 _Louise is almost positive she has nothing new in her life to share, and if there was, Linda would blab it to everybody three seconds after it happened. "Um, I kinda have to get these fries to table three… and I have, like, an entire restaurant to run, so…"_

 _The handyman glances around and laughs. "There's only two other people in here! Come on, have a chat with your Uncle Teddy."_

 _She shudders internally and marches back to stand in front of him behind the counter. Louise has never been Teddy's biggest fan, though she had always found him to be her favorite babysitter— even more than Tina or Jen— because he was so pitifully gullible._

 _"So…" Teddy drums his hands on the counter. "How's life treating ya? I imagine working in the restaurant must keep you busy."_

 _"Uh… yep. I guess." Louise shuffles her feet and watches the cheese on the fries start to congeal. "Look, I really—"_

 _Then he says it. "And I'm sure you must miss that Rudy kid. Your mother talks about you two a lot, you know. Shame he has to be two hours and twenty-seven minutes away." He completes this with a wink, and Louise feels something angry fizz in her gut._

 _The fry platter slams onto the counter hard enough to chip a corner. "Alright, listen here, Uncle," Louise snarls, thrusting a shaking index finger in his face. "For the last time, I do not miss him! He's not far away, and I can visit him almost anytime I like. I could freaking walk out of here right now and jog there! I'm not weak or helpless without him around, and oh-ho, if you even dare suggest that I'm lonely without him here, then you're mistaken, pal! I'm used to being left behind. Tina left when I was fourteen, Gene left when I was sixteen, and I was left here in the same old crusty town with the same annoying people! I am a grown ass woman and I think I can survive without seeing Rudy for however long, because he's only in college and not in the goddamn army, got it? And I know he'll come back someday. So if you even mention his name again with the word 'miss' or 'lonely,' I will make your shriveled brain into a burger!"_

 _Her chest is heaving, and she gulps hard, resting her elbows on the counter and lowering her head. Her hands are in fists tight enough to burst blood vessels. The other two customers have disappeared, leaving behind only a couple of wrinkled dollar bills as evidence they were ever here. What surprises her is the sudden presence of her parents, who are frozen in the doorway with gaping jaws. Teddy almost looks windblown from her spit flying in his face, but Louise has zero regrets for using him as her dartboard. It was about damn time for those darts to be thrown._

 _Linda shatters the stunned silence first, flying forward and engulfing her youngest daughter in a hug. "Oh, my baby," she coos. "You've been suffering."_

 _"I… um," Teddy clears his throat, and hastily throws some money on the counter next to his untouched burger. "I'll catch you guys later." Then, thankfully, he pushes past Bob and leaves._

 _Bob at last enters, a look of pure confusion etched on his face. "Louise, we're sorry. We don't want you to feel left behind, and I'm sure your siblings wouldn't want you to feel that way either. I thought…" He scratches his bald spot and sighs. "Is working here in the restaurant what you want to do?"_

 _Louise sniffs and pushes her mother away. "Of course it is, Dad. I've just… I'm just… so tired." She wipes sweat from her brow and takes a fry from the forgotten platter. "Tired of this routine. Tired of people telling me how I should feel." She then reaches for Teddy's burger and takes a hearty bite. "I need… a break," she says around the mouthful._

 _"Okay," Bob responds, though he still sounds uncertain. "You can have the rest of the day off."_

 _"Give her a few days, Bobby," Linda murmurs._

 _"Alright, a few days off." Bob takes her apron and nods solemnly at the youngest Belcher. "We're here for you, Louise. You know that."_

 _She nods, holding the burger close to her chest. "I know." Then, without another word, she exits the restaurant and heads upstairs to the apartment._

 _Hours later, Louise is seated in front of the TV with glazed eyes and a half-eaten slice of pizza draped over a paper towel on her lap. It's past two in the morning and she feels like a zombie._

 _When the tapping on the window reaches her ears, she doesn't think much of it at first. Then it grows persistent, each tap succeeding the previous one faster and faster. With an unintelligible grumble, Louise rises and tosses the pizza aside to stare out the window._

 _What she sees is so grossly cliché she almost feels sick. It takes a second to make out Rudy in the darkness, but then he steps into the fuzzy light of a street lamp and waves cheerfully up at her. Louise's fingers tighten on the windowsill, then she rushes down the stairs to open the front door._

 _She stampedes right into him, meeting her lips with his as the collection of small pebbles in his hand clatters to the sidewalk. "What the hell are you doing here?" is the first thing she asks when they unglue themselves._

 _"I decided to visit." He grins sheepishly, as if they're a couple of nine-year-olds again, sneaking around. "Can I come in?"_

 _Louise hesitates, then opens the door just wide enough for him to slip in. They barely make it to her bedroom in time, and for a second she admits to herself that maybe she missed him a tiny bit._

 _She knows this. Just the littlest bit._

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	6. outta here

They never make it to the observatory, but they do manage to find an apartment a few miles outside New Orleans with dirt-cheap monthly rent. The place does have its downsides, of course: a worn, ratty carpet dotted with stains, paper-thin walls (their next-door neighbors are far more promiscuous than Louise and Logan could ever dream of being), and it's in a very… sketchy area.

But they love it. Well, they like it. It's… tolerable.

Louise lands a job at the local supermarket with only Bob's Burgers on her "resume." The first thing her new boss says after "You're hired" is "The hat's gotta go."

She grins. "The hat has to stay."

The guy stares dumbly at her. "Sorry missy, pink bunny ears aren't part of our uniform here. They gotta go."

"No, they're gonna stay," she drawls, then stands up and gives him a casual salute. "I'll see ya tomorrow at eight!"

Logan is sifting through the job offers in the newspaper as well, but he's not all that dedicated to the search. "We won't stick around here long," he tells her. "Just 'til we make enough cash to buy a better car, then we're outta here."

But Louise isn't quite sure if she ever wants to leave.

Their "short stop" in New Orleans ends up lasting close to a year, anyway. It's her first birthday without her family. She spends it in the apartment with Logan, seated around the cheap Ikea coffee table that serves as their dining table, blowing out a candle stuck into a grocery store cupcake. She licks the frosting off the candle, and he kisses the frosting off her mouth.

And the months drag on. When the following November rolls around, Louise arrives home from work with the phrase "Welcome to ShopsMart" tattooed on her tongue and an achy feeling in her bones.

"Hey," she greets Logan. He's sitting on one of the two lawn chairs in the living room, feet propped on the cramped dining table, scrolling on his phone.

"Sup. How was work?"

"Fine," she sighs, taking out her ponytail and collapsing on the other lawn chair. "What're we eating tonight?"

"Um." He glances up, meeting her eyes for three seconds, then half-shrugs. "I think we have leftover Chinese in the fridge."

Fifteen minutes later, the two of them are munching their way through lukewarm Chinese food, him on his phone and her staring out the window. There's a couple in the building across the street fighting in front of their open window, and it's getting intense. This shit is better than anything a TV show could offer.

"Hey," Logan finally says after a while. She tears her gaze away from the fight. A broken beer bottle just got thrown into the mix, and now is when he chooses to speak up.

"What?"

"I found us a car!" he announces, excitement drawing every feature on his face upward. It's been a while since she saw him smile. Before Louise can reply, he slides his phone across the small table and points a finger at the screen. "Check it out. 97K miles on it. And it's totally loaded, got all the bells and whistles. Not too shabby, huh?"

Louise laughs. "This car is an '02. It's as old as me! You seriously think that could get us across the country?"

"C'mon, Four Ears. I don't know if we'll find a deal as good as this ever again! I think we need to strike while the iron is hot."

Slowly, her eyes flutter up to his. He looks so hopeful, for the first time in ages. Maybe it is about time they get a move on. And the car is cheap for its mileage…

"Whatever. You can check it out tomorrow, I guess." It takes a lot of strength to suppress her excitement. She's not sure why she feels like it should be hidden.

At three in the morning, they are roused by police lights outside the window. They're tangled in each other, a mess of arms and legs (how did that happen?) under a single throw blanket on a mattress on the floor, then abruptly he's gone. She feels the emptiness in her arms and sits up too, squinting at the red and blue flashing through the shutters.

"The hell is that?" she grumbles.

"Oh, shit," Logan mutters, peeking between a gap in the shutters.

"What?" she demands, irritated at his lack of a response. "Who died?"

He turns back to face her with a grimace. "Some guy got stabbed… they're carrying him out on a stretcher. There's blood all over the sidewalk. It's a damn circus out there."

She'll never forget the way he stands there stricken at the window, red on his forehead and blue on his cheek, hair sticking at all angles.

"We gotta get the hell out of here," Louise says. He nods.

The next morning, he heads off to the car lot while she goes to work. They leave the apartment key with their landlord. She has all her minimal possessions crammed into a backpack in her locker at ShopsMart.

At the end of the day, she stands on the chilly curb with everything she owns on her back. A black sedan pulls up, sleek and stealthy as a panther. She ignores it, but then the window rolls down and a stupid, smirking blond head pops out.

"Sup, Four Ears. Hop in!"

"What the heck is this thing?" Louise asks incredulously. She climbs into the passenger seat and throws her stuff in the back, running a hesitant hand over the polished dashboard. This thing has a freaking screen in it! She's never been in a car this nice her entire life.

"I wanted to surprise you," Logan tells her as they exit the shopping center. "I actually had a little more money in my pocket than I was letting on."

She glares at him. "How much?"

"Enough," he says.

"You're gonna tell me how much you spent on this thing, Bush."

He scratches his head. "Um… ten grand."

Louise does a double take. She must have misheard that. "… where in the fuck did you find that cash?" And to think she used to be the money expert!

"I, uh… borrowed some money from my parents. And by borrowed I mean stole."

"When?"

He doesn't answer.

"When?"

Logan hesitates, eyes darting everywhere except her. "Before we left Jersey."

She slouches back against the seat, jaw on the floor and anger bubbling in her chest. "What the hell? Were you ever going to tell me this? I worked my ass off at that terrible grocery store for almost a year while you 'looked' for a job!"

He reaches out a hand, but she swats it away. "Hey—"

"I'd fucking slap you right now if it wouldn't land us in a ditch," she growls. "Shut up for a while, 'kay?"

Some time passes. Watching the world go by through the window so quickly makes her dizzy, so she stares at her lap. When she talks again, it's a struggle to keep her voice even.

"I don't care if you stole it, I just want to know why you stole it."

"Because I needed to," he answers. And that's enough.

At the first rest stop, she calls her dad.

"Louise?" Bob almost sounds amazed that she was the one to reach out. "Oh my god. How are you? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, we're… fine," Louise says. She has to squeeze the words out through grinding teeth. "We're leaving Louisiana."

There's a quiet click, and Linda's voice joins in. "Louise? Is that you?"

"Yes, Mom."

"My baby! Why are you leaving Louisiana? Aw, I liked saying 'Louise is in Louisiana!' I had a whole song and everything."

Bob's voice is strained, like a fragile dam holding back something emotional. "Are you coming back home?"

Something resembling guilt stabs her heart. "No, we're not coming back home. We just finally got a working car and it's time to move on."

"Oh," her father says. The sound is flatter than an old soda.

Linda is quick to hop to a lighter subject. "Ah, well, we have some news!" She pauses for effect, and Louise groans.

"Please, god, if you're having another baby I will start questioning how biology even works."

"Very funny, but no," her mother says. "The news is, your sister moved back home! She came to visit and decided we needed more help around the restaurant, so she moved back into the apartment yesterday. Back in her old room and everything."

"Yeah, that's… cool," Louise replies. Why is her throat tight?

"It's, uh… nice to have the extra help around the restaurant," Bob comments.

"Not like we're getting any younger!" Linda adds with a brittle laugh, and Louise's stomach twists.

The silence on the line is so painful, and she almost expects them to hang up. Then Linda says softly, "Sweetheart… are you having any trouble?"

The youngest Belcher's fingers tighten on the phone. "What? No," she scoffs. Then silence settles on the line again; her parents are waiting for the beans to be spilled, so Louise decides to spill just a few very vague beans. "No, it's just… Logan was keeping something kinda important from me, so… it's nothing, really. We're fine."

"Fine never means fine," Linda cuts in. "If you want to come home, your father will go wherever you are ASAP and pick you up."

"What? I don't think—" Bob starts, then gives up and sighs. "Louise, we've been keeping something from you, too."

She frowns. "Huh?"

"Listen, we… we have always been, uh, skeptical of Logan."

Louise relaxes, even chuckles a little. "Oh yeah, I definitely picked up on that."

Linda is serious when she speaks this time. "Well, it's more your father who disapproves, because of the age difference."

Louise frowns again. "What? It's only six years."

"That's practically lifetimes apart, as young as you are," Bob says. The dam that's been holding back his agitation is notably starting to crack. "You're almost twenty, and he's, what, twenty-five? You're at different stages in your life. He might start to want different things than what you want, or are ready for."

"Dad, you don't seriously think—"

"I- I just want you to know that," Bob interrupts. "I'm not getting into a whole discussion about this." Then there's a click, and Louise is left with her mom.

"I'll talk to him," Linda sighs. "Don't worry about what he said. He's just protective of you."

"Right." Louise's throat feels swollen, like she's having an allergic reaction. Her eyes are watering. What is this?

"He always has been, he's just showing it now more than ever. You'll always be his favorite of you three brats," Linda goes on. "Remember, we love you. And wash your ears once in a while!"

Then she's gone too, and the dead line blares in her ear. Louise reaches up to touch her bunny ears, and wonders which ears her mom was talking about, even though she already knows the answer.

She falls back into the car and Logan merges back into traffic, and they leave behind what they know to enter more of the unknown.

 **oo0oo**

 _"So… double dates are fun, huh?" Tina pipes up. Everything about her tone and body language is screaming "awkward," and Louise doesn't disagree with her._

 _"This isn't a double date, Tina. You don't have a date," Rudy points out politely._

 _"Yeah, where is the bastard? Is he hiding under the table or what?" Louise jokes, but it's in too poor of taste to be funny._

 _For the first time in a while, her sister is visiting from out of state and what is the first thing Linda does after suffocate her oldest child via hug for twenty minutes straight? Send these three poor souls on a "semi-double date." What a shitty way to spend a Saturday evening._

 _Louise isn't even sure why her brain told her it was a good idea to poke fun at Tina's love life. She became much luckier once she passed through the dumpster fire called puberty. She even dated longtime crush Jimmy Junior for three months in her senior year of high school. They tried to make it last through college, but they drifted apart. It was a gentle and painless way to cut Tina free from her inexplicable tether to him. And after Jimmy Junior, there were others. It just so happens that right now Tina is single, and Louise is not, and that drums up an uncomfortable amount of friction between the sisters._

 _Louise chews a bite of mac-and-cheese thoughtfully, then swallows. "So, T, how is your writing going? That's what you do, right?"_

 _"Yep. I write. It's great," Tina says stiffly. She nudges her glasses as if they can go up any farther on her nose. "But please, enough about myself. How are things with you and Rudy?"_

 _"Oh, we're fantastic," Louise answers, slurping her Sprite obnoxiously loud. "Lots of sex and sex over Skype calls."_

 _Tina stabs her fork into a bite of chicken. "That sounds amazing, Louise. Tell me, how much of that Skype sex time is spent with you crying alone in your bedroom?"_

 _The younger Belcher is taken aback by her sister's viciousness. Since when did that snake have any real venom in her fangs? Louise squares her shoulders and leans across the table. "You're stinking up the whole restaurant with your jealousy. How about you leave right now and take your big fat green monster with you?"_

 _Rudy glances between the two women, jaw hanging open slightly. He looks like a damn nutcracker with his mouth like that, and Louise wishes he would just shove a walnut in it and shut up. But instead he butts in._

 _"U- uh, guys, let's try to calm down a little, okay? Think of how precious time with family is, Louise," he says, shooting her a pointed look. "You might regret fighting with each other later."_

 _"That's where you're wrong, Rudolph," Louise growls._

 _"… where was I right?" he asks._

 _"Nowhere. None… none of that was right," she sighs. Then, focusing a glower on Tina, she rises from the booth with one set of fingers clasped around Rudy's skinny forearm. "I'll catch you at home, bitch," she tells Tina._

 _"Don't bother waiting for your invite to join the menstruation nation!" Tina calls after them as Rudy hastily throws a twenty on the table._

 _Louise stomps closer to the exit. "Good, 'cause I don't want to be around you and Mom, anyway!"_

 _"That's just grand, because you still act like you're a prepubescent nine-year-old anyway!"_

 _Tina's final shot still hits Louise as she breezes through the front doors of the restaurant. Her ears are bright red like her face, and for the first time in ages she misses her bunny ears._

 _Rudy groans, following her dutifully down the street. "Was that really necessary, Louise?"_

 _"Yes, it absolutely was. I needed to make a point."_

 _"And that point was what, exactly? To insult your only sister?" Louise grumbles in response, and he continues, "Life is short, Lou. I don't want you to regret anything."_

 _She shrugs. "I don't. My headstone will literally have 'No Regrets' carved in it. I already ordered it in my will."_

 _He freezes, studying her carefully. "You have a will written?"_

 _Louise grins back at him. "Well, you said it. Life's short."_

 _When he still hasn't moved, she stops also and tilts her head. "What's your deal?"_

 _"I'm leaving tomorrow," Rudy informs her of what she already very well knows. "And I know I'll only be—"_

 _"— two hours and twenty-seven minutes away—" she puts in._

 _"— two hours and twenty-seven minutes away, but I'll miss you," he finishes._

 _She grimaces. "Aw, that's… cute."_

 _He moves closer to take her hands in his. "Louise, do you ever think about our future?"_

 _"Oh, all the time," she drones sarcastically._

 _"I'm serious."_

 _Her gaze drops down from the sky to lock with his, and something electric tingles up her spine. "Sure I do," she says. "Don't you?"_

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	7. valentine's day

Louise shovels a bite of food into her mouth and leans back. "Please, don't do anything extravagant for Valentine's Day. It's—"

"— your least favorite holiday, and the mere mention of it makes bile rise up in your throat. Yep, got it," Logan interrupts. "All carefully noted up here." He taps his forehead.

"Sure, it's noted, but how 'bout remembered?" she challenges.

He smirks. "We'll have to see."

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise wipes down the counter while fixing a firm glare on the skinny redhead facing her. "Please, don't do anything extravagant for Valentine's Day. It's the worst holiday ever, and so not worth spending money on." She pauses and facepalms herself, horror drawn on her face. "Shit, I'm turning into a cheapskate like my dad."_

 _Rudy lifts his eyebrows. "A- are you sure, Louise? You don't even want chocolates or something?"_

 _"No. Nothing at all. Do you want me to vomit?"_

 _He opens his mouth to say something, but the old laptop chooses this moment to freeze up. She rests faltering eyes on his face, fuzzy and pixelated on the crappy screen. Then, with an irritated sigh, she shuts the computer and tosses the rag in the sink._

 **oo0oo**

She sleeps on a flannel blanket spread under an inky black canvas of stars in the Arizona desert. She wakes on a flannel blanket with a canopy spread over her. Roses and pillows are strewn all around, stitched together from scraps and filled with crunchy newspaper. Strings of lights line the roof of the tent, and a playful breeze blows in through the partially-open zippered flap.

Louise sits up, rubbing her eyes and unzipping the flap the rest of the way. She discovers a tunnel. "The hell did you do, Logan? Put me in a hamster maze?" With an irritable mutter, she crawls forward until she reaches another zippered flap. She undoes this and falls into a larger tent.

This is where she finds Mr. Bush himself, wearing nothing but Kuchi Kopi boxers and fake abs stenciled onto his stomach with a Sharpie pen. He poses with a devilish smirk and lifts a cover to reveal a classy spread of beer and pizza.

"There's my favorite little Energizer Bunny!" Logan greets her.

She glances around at the dim setting with part awe and part annoyance. "Dude, what did I literally just tell you the other day?"

"What, what did you tell me? I don't remember a damn thing." He slides over to her and brings her in for a fierce make-out session. They fall back on some pillows, her on top and him below. He pushes her away for a brief second to laugh. "Oh, and one more thing." He flicks away more of the cover to show a single hamburger on a paper plate. "Courtesy of McDonald's."

She nods. "I am both insulted and furious." Then she dives in for more.

 **oo0oo**

 _He arrives back on Ocean Avenue with a tired car parked behind him, a backpack slung over his shoulder, and a heart-shaped box of dollar-store chocolates in hand._

 _"I had to get you something," he pants as she lets him inside. "It's a special day."_

 _Louise punches his arm not quite hard enough to make him squeal and takes the chocolates. "These aren't made in Canada like last year's were, right?"_

 _"Oh, hell no. I learned my lesson with that. And if there are any coconut ones in there, I'll eat them for you," Rudy tells her. He kisses her long and gentle on the landing, then turns to lug his exhausted body up the stairs._

 _His back is turned, and Louise grins a little at the box._

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	8. caving in

Louise is twenty-one and in a California parking garage when she gets the call.

"Your sister's getting married!" Linda gushes into her ear.

"Er, _what_?" Louise sputters. She paces behind their parked car, footsteps echoing and bouncing from one cement wall to another. "To who?"

Her mother's tone takes a sharp turn into Angertown. "What do you mean, ' _who_?' To her boyfriend of fourteen months and three days, not like I've been counting!" There's a pause, but no recognition is granted from Louise's end. "Zeke!"

Louise blinks dumbly. "Oh." Then a thought occurs to her, and she snorts. "The one Gene had a crush on in high school? Now that is quite the love triangle." Her mom doesn't seem to hear her, however.

"The wedding's in June," Linda states. The excitement in her voice has been steamrolled over somewhat, but it still shines through. "If you and your almost-hubby could make it, we would love to have you of course."

Louise tries not to gag at the nickname for Logan. "I dunno. We're kinda across the country right now."

"Ah, well." Linda sounds defeated. "As long as you aren't in one of those dangerous Middle Eastern countries, I'm fine with it. We just…" Her sentence is broken up by a barely audible sigh. "We miss you, honey."

When Louise hangs up a minute later, her gaze lands on Logan, who is perched on the car's front hood. "What's up?" he asks.

"Nothing much. Tina's tying the knot with the grossest person in her middle school friend group," she mumbles. She nudges the toe of her Converse to a chunk of gravel, and kicks it clear across the empty area.

He perks up in interest. "Nothing much? That's big news! Wow. Gotta say I'm a little surprised."

"I didn't even know they were dating," she whispers.

"When's the wedding?" he asks.

Louise crosses her arms over her chest and rocks back and forth on her feet. "June."

Logan nods grimly and approaches from behind to wrap himself around her like a cocoon. "Do you wanna go? We could make it back there in time." She doesn't reply immediately; he nuzzles her neck, wisps of dark hair tickling his cheek. "Four Ears."

She startles upright, as if she'd been in a daze. "What?" She blows a raspberry and elbows him off. "Me? Wearing a tight, lacy bridesmaid dress? You'd have to put a gun to my head."

He chuckles. "Yeah, I know you're not the tight, lacy lingerie kind of girl. How could a tight, lacy dress ever work?"

"Boxers just make so much more sense! They're lightweight, airy, comfortable." Louise pinches his arm and heads back to the car. "Come on, we've got places to be, almost-hubby."

Somehow, she doesn't gag from saying that.

He freezes, eyes wide and owl-like. "What'd you call me?"

She goes to pinch him again.

 **oo0oo**

 _She wants to forget how amazing it feels when he's inside her._

 _The nausea swirling like a tornado in her stomach, the sore pounding in her skull, the pulsing ache in her breasts, and the plastic stick held steadfast in her hand make it easy to forget._

 _The last three weeks are filled with endless days that have all started in the same way: with her doubled over the toilet, in a cold sweat, sleep-frizzed hair falling in her face._

 _"Shit," Louise breathes, falling back against the tub as the evidence of her misery is flushed into oblivion. She's never willingly been up this early in the morning, and it's terrible. She can see the sun rising through the small window in the shower, but there's no time to admire its beauty before she's retching into the porcelain throne yet again._

 _When she pulls her face away, her eyes shift again to the test. Who knew pissing on a piece of plastic could tell her future in a matter of minutes?_

 _Two lines. For the millionth time, she reads over the box to make sure two lines mean what she thinks they mean._

 _They do. She takes the other test out, unwraps it, and pisses on that one too._

 _Two freaking lines._

 _She drags herself over to the mirror, and through the smudges and flecks of toothpaste she sees a twenty-one-year-old beat up by life. Those two lines? Just two more black eyes._

 _She whips some hair over her shoulder and walks out of the bathroom._

 _Rudy can't be reached until much later that afternoon. His grinning face pops up on the screen, complete with a ruffled carrot-top and an unusual energy in his gray eyes._

 _"Hey, Lou!" he chirps._

 _"Well, Rudes," she blurts out. "You knocked me up!"_

 _All at once, his demeanor changes. His smile drops into a disbelieving gape, and alarm bells are ringing loudly in that round head of his._

 _"Way to go!" Louise pushes on. "Are you totally hating life right now? Because I'm totally not."_

 _He shakes his head vigorously, like there's water stuck in his ear. "I- I swear I've always worn protection! I never forgot once, I—"_

 _She laughs calmly, and likes how her chill nature is making him all the more uneasy. "No, no, don't fault yourself. The condom broke. I forgot to take the pill one day. Just one goddamn day, Rudolph." Louise clasps her hands together and sits very businesslike in front of the laptop. "Now, there are a few options here, and I think—"_

 _During the time she's been speaking, he has spiraled into full-on freak-out mode. He's up from his chair, pacing to and fro behind it with his fingernails buried in his scalp. Various fragments stammer their way off his tongue, but finally he swivels back to the desk and slams his hands on it, wild eyes gazing right into the camera. "This is wrong, all wrong! It— it's all out of order, Louise! I haven't finished school, and— and we're not married, or… or…"_

 _"I know this has so rudely disrupted your adorable little life plan," Louise says through grinding teeth. "And so I present to you an easy solution: I'll get an abortion, and we can kiss this rude disruption goodbye."_

 _Silence. All she can hear from his end is heavy panting._

 _"We don't want this stupid thing, anyway. Right?" Her brow furrows, and she squints at the screen, at his face. Is it weird that the stress lines on his forehead make him look cuter?_

 _"Rudy," she tries again, but his name teeters hesitantly on the tip of her tongue. "Right?"_

 _"What if… we do want it?"_

 _Panic sears her blood like flames. "You can't be serious." He looks at her, miles of inter-web between their eyes, and he's quite serious. "Son of a bitch!" Louise swears, and she stands so suddenly her chair falls over. Her breathing becomes labored just as he calms down. They've completely traded places, and she hates it._

 _"Let's get married."_

 _She hates it._

 _"Louise." His gentle eyes, his fuzzy gray kitten eyes, burn into her from the screen. The desk is a sweaty slip-n-slide, and her fingers are losing their white-knuckled grip on the edge._

 _"Louise, marry me."_

 _She looks away from him and swallows. Does she want this? She won't let him influence her. This is her decision alone._

 _Her head lifts up again and she lets out the words in a long sigh. "Ugh, damn it."_

* * *

 **congrats you made it to the bottom! thanks for reading!**


	9. don't tell

The day of her sister's wedding, Louise is in a café in the heart of Seattle.

"So sorry, but I can't be there," she'd said when voicing her regrets over the phone some weeks earlier. "There's just no way I can."

And so she isn't.

She stirs her coffee and glances out the window— it's raining, again— then looks to Logan. He's across the table from her, scrolling on his phone with a keen interest displayed on his face. The tip of his tongue is peeking out again, and his brows are slanted downward.

"I wonder if it's raining back home," she says aloud suddenly. Louise hadn't intended for the words to escape her mind, yet here they are, presented in plain view for Logan to hear. His eyes flit upward to meet hers.

"Might be," he muses. There's a touch of silence, then he shows her his phone, with the weather app open. "Yeah, according to this it's drizzling there."

Louise slouches over the table, resting her left cheek on an arm to stare comfortably at the downpour outside. Her mother must be having an aneurysm.

Right then, her phone starts buzzing and she picks it up. Gene is trying to FaceTime her. What the hell…

She hits the accept button and is greeted by her brother's face: two cheeks like red balloons, shiny from sweat, and enormous brown eyes.

"The situation here is dire! You must report at once!" he whispers dramatically into his device, face practically pressed on the screen. For a few comical seconds, it looks like Gene is physically trapped inside Louise's phone.

"Kinda impossible for me to do that, bro," she replies. "Is… is something actually wrong?" Her question is tentative, but since it was implied it would be in her good nature to ask it, she asks it.

"Eh, everything's totally fine and under control. It's just that it's thunderstorming really bad and loud and Mom's dream beach wedding is completely ruined!" His words dissolve into exaggerated sobs, and Louise sighs.

"Drizzling, my ass," she hisses to Logan, who offers an apologetic shrug before she returns her attention to the other Belcher. "Don't you mean Tina's dream beach wedding?"

Gene sniffs and shakes his head. "Oh, no, I meant what I said, honey! Mom is being a total bridezilla. What did you expect? Tina's just along for the ride." He falls silent for a moment, turning to check over his shoulder, then leans closer. "And there's something even worse…! I ran out of time to shave!" With that, he turns to face the camera head-on, and Louise cringes. The other half of his face is completely clean-shaven, with a few nicks here and there, while he still wears the shaggy goatee on the other side.

"Yikes," she observes.

"I am never shaving again!" Gene declares, lifting an index finger to enforce his proclamation. "I have yet to produce a mustache as perfectly bushy as Dad's, and I don't plan on giving up on it!" He thrusts a twitching eye in the camera and murmurs, "I will achieve my 'stache dreams one day, sister. Take my word for it!"

Louise nods curtly. "Right." She squints, trying to see around his big head. "So are you guys postponing the wedding or what?"

Gene cackles. "Of course not, you silly girl. The show must go on, rain or shine! They're trying to put up a big tent thingy right now." He switches the camera to the front view so she can see the cringeworthy scene. The sky is dark gray, angry clouds glaring down on the several wedding party members trying to pin down a tent in the middle of countless gusts of sand.

"Trying, and failing," she notes.

"You would be correct," he agrees. "Oh, is Logan there?" At her nod, a big grin pops up on her brother's face. "Ooh, let me say hi to your almost-hubby! Come on!"

She winces and starts to shake her head. "How about you try helping them put up the big tent thingy—" But then Logan, who has been listening to this entire exchange, snatches away her phone and begins conversing with Gene.

She exhales angrily, but he takes no notice. Does Gene seriously not remember that time Logan shoved his shrieking face into his death-scented armpit? Guess "good looks" really can erase the worst of experiences.

Logan definitely isn't the first of Louise's boy toys that Gene (and Tina) has crushed on. And they're not the only ones. One of Louise's least favorite feelings is the burning jealousy that she feels in her gut when other people in public places check out Logan. It makes her want to remind him just how disturbingly ugly his face is— just so he doesn't get too cocky.

"Aww, they're saying their vows," Logan pipes up suddenly in that weird sweet tone of his that he never uses with Louise.

"What?" she demands, jumping to her feet and going to stand over his shoulder. Sure enough, on the pixelated screen are Tina and Zeke, standing in the distance with a raging sky behind them and the Atlantic on the horizon. They're grappling with the howling wind, yelling so that they can at least hear each other speak.

Louise digs her elbows into Logan's shoulder and rolls her eyes. "So glad that's not me."

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise has never felt more ill walking into the restaurant. It's mostly because of morning sickness— she's sure of that— but a tiny part of her might also be, well, nervous._

 _Not as if she'll admit that, though._

 _"Which should we tell them first?" Rudy is loyally at her side, a tittering baby bird. His fingers are shaking like flimsy strips of paper in wind, and his hyperventilating is really starting to get to her. She reaches into his pocket for him and presses his inhaler into one trembling hand. He blinks at her gratefully._

 _"You're definitely gonna need that in there," she says. "Just let me handle it, okay?" Then, exhaling softly, she turns to the door and pushes it open. The familiar bell of her childhood jingles above their heads as they walk in. She wonders what happened to her childhood. Where did it go? She still feels like a child. She's twenty-one, not thirty._

 _She's not ready for this._

 _Then she glances over at Rudy again, and her heart flutters uncertainly in her ribcage like a trapped bird. She feels so completely and utterly stuck. She almost grabs his hand and runs right back out of the restaurant— they could run away from here, they could make it work, he has a car and she has money saved, they could— but then her mother looks up and grins. "Hey, you two! How's it goin'?"_

 _The quicksand Louise stepped into is sucking her in rapidly, and it's in this second, as her heartbeat thuds in her ears, that she realizes there's no escaping._

 _"Um," Louise coughs. "Where's Dad?"_

 _Linda's face doesn't even fall like it used to. Louise wonders for a moment how many times it took her brushing her mom off for Linda to realize who was preferred._

 _"It's 4:30, honey," Linda jerks her head at the clock on the wall at the same time her thumb points lazily toward the bathroom. "He brought in the newspaper and a small novel with him, so looks like he'll be a while today."_

 _Louise is oddly relieved by this. After all, her mother almost never reacts badly to any good-natured news. How could she be upset by wedding and baby news, aside from the fact that Louise feels like her life is crumbling all around her? Without Bob's disapproval present to influence her, she'll have to be on Louise's side._

 _Yeah, this will be fine. Just as long as Bob stays glued to the toilet— though not literally like that one time._

 _"Well, Mom," Louise begins, pulling herself up onto a bar stool as Rudy joins her. "Remember how I was talking about possibly taking some business classes at the community college?"_

 _She feels Rudy's surprised eyes scalding her face, but she ignores him for the time being and fixates on her mother._

 _"Hm," Linda mutters, nodding. "Yeah, I do recall. Why, were you thinking of following through with that? You know how tight money is—"_

 _"It's community college, Mom," Louise sighs. "The Pesto twins are there. Tuition ain't expensive. But that's beside the point." She clasps her hands together and looks at Linda straight-on. Her mom has the same big, fuzzy brown eyes as Gene. It brings her an unexplained burst of confidence. "Look, you don't have to worry about that anyway. Because… I'm pregnant."_

 _Then Rudy hops in, to her chagrin. "And we're getting married!" he stutters, throwing an arm around her shoulders._

 _Linda is silent. Rudy's lungs are about to explode. Slowly, her mother looks from Louise to Rudy, then back to Louise. The youngest Belcher can almost picture the steam exiting her mother's ears as her brain works to process this overload of information._

 _Rudy's nerves get the better of him, and he collapses over the counter, chest heaving. "Get ahold of yourself!" Louise seethes, lifting him up and scraping the inhaler off his sweaty palm. She's seen him use it so many times, it's a breeze for her to pry open his jaws and, with a firm slap on the back, get him to inhale the medicine._

 _As soon as he recovers, Linda shrieks. Her fingers are curled into fists, which she pumps up and down in the air while spinning around. She dances from one end of the counter to the other, apron twirling along with her like a fancy ball gown. The pot of this morning's coffee in her hand is sloshing dangerously close to the edge. Thankfully, she sets it down and returns to Rudy and Louise with a gleeful drumroll of her hands on the counter._

 _"Oh… my… gawd!" she squeals. Her breaths are almost heavier than Rudy's were a minute ago, and Louise arches a brow._

 _"Are you gonna need this too?" she asks, holding up the inhaler._

 _Linda is too flustered to answer. She fans herself and prances around some more. "Oh my god… oh my god…" she keeps repeating. "My— my first grandchild! Oh my god, Bobby!"_

 _When she calls Bob's name, Louise stiffens and hops to her feet. "Woah, woah, Mom, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I'm only at six weeks, things can happen, I- I shouldn't've even told you this soon—"_

 _"Six weeks?" Linda yells. "Oh my god, you went to your first appointment without me? Do you have an ultras—"_

 _Louise scowls and makes a motion for her to lower her voice. "No, it's too early for that," she hisses. "Now will you please listen to me?" She clamps her hands down on Linda's shoulders, digging in her fingernails like claws. "Listen. We are not telling Dad about this."_

 _"Whaaat? Why not?"_

 _"Why not? Do you want to see your future son-in-law get castrated with kitchen shears?" Louise leans around Linda to smile awkwardly at Rudy. "Sorry, but he would do that to you without mercy." His eyes widen in horror, and with a hum of satisfaction Louise looks back at her mom. "You have to keep this a secret until a few weeks after we're… married." The word tastes bitter on her tongue. "You. Tell. No one. Got it?"_

 _Linda nods solemnly. "Alrighty, got it. But at least let me tell your siblings."_

 _Louise groans and face-palms herself. "Mom…"_

 _"C'mon, they can't be left out!"_

 _And that's how the news spreads to Tina and Gene in two minutes flat. It's like the bubonic plague— who knows where it will travel to next?_

 _After they listen to Tina drone on about being an amazing aunt ("And I bet they'll have an imaginary horse too, you'll see!") and Gene voice his ridiculous worries in regards to the wedding ("It's a matter of sequins or velvet, people!"), they hear the fateful toilet flush._

 _"Alright, we got twenty seconds maximum before his hands are washed and he's out," Louise whispers urgently. She grabs her mother's wrist and squeezes it. "Mom, please. I know you love to tell people things, but you cannot share this. Or else."_

 _Linda's excitement falters, and her face falls. She tries to retract her hand from her daughter's, but Louise has an iron grip. "I understand, sweetie, but… well, why did you tell me then?"_

 _The twenty seconds between flush and Bob's reentrance are rapidly disappearing, and Louise has no answer for her. She opens and closes her mouth a few times like a fish out of water; then she lowers her head and speaks to her feet. "I… I need your help," she says stiffly. "I, uh… I kinda have a feeling all the Google searches in the world couldn't prepare me for what's ahead." Then, she raises her eyes to Linda's. She absolutely refuses to allow that grin threatening to appear on her lips. "I guess you could say I'm a little freaked out. I mean, it's really no big deal, and I could totally handle this on my own anyway, but since I have you around, I figured I might as well take advantage of—"_

 _Linda cuts off her youngest daughter's rambling with a chuckle. She reaches forward and sweeps away wavy black strands from Louise's face. "My little lady's all grown up," she sniffles. "She can finally admit she needs help. Don't worry about a thing. I won't tell your father until afterward." She pauses, then tilts her head curiously. "Now, by afterward, does that mean right after you say your vows is okay?"_

 _Louise shrugs her off and groans. "No, Mom."_

 _The bathroom door creaks open, and Bob emerges with the paper tucked under his arm and a book in hand. "I was planning to get a lot of reading done during my meeting," he starts, shuffling back behind the counter to stand next to his wife. "But then I heard Lin scream, so…" He clears his throat and shifts his weight. "I got out as soon as I could."_

 _"Yeah, yeah," Linda says. "Yawn. Enough about you, and more about these lil' lovebirds!" She grins widely at Louise and Rudy. "Alright you two, tell him the big news."_

 _Louise cranes her neck to glance at Rudy, who is close behind her. She has no idea when their fingers became woven together, but she doesn't mind if she never finds out._

 _"Wanna take this one, Rudes?"_

 _His head bobs up and down, and with a timid inhale he steps forward and stares evenly at Bob. "U- um, Mr. Belcher… I was, uh, I was just… I was wondering if I could, maybe, er— marry your daughter?" The amount of sweat he is secreting from his hand right now is unreal. Or is that her sweating buckets?_

 _Bob blinks blankly at him._

 _"I mean, um, this daughter," Rudy clarifies, as if it needs clarifying. He brings his other arm to rest around the small of her back. "Louise."_

 _Bob narrows his eyes. "Oh… my god." He massages his face for a moment, shakes his head, then scrutinizes Rudy. "You wanna marry Louise? Alright." There's a wave of relaxation washing over the room, but then— "You just have to pass my little quiz first."_

 _Rudy gulps. "Quiz?"_

 _"Yeah, Rudy, a quiz. I just want to know how well you know my daughter." Bob props his elbows up on the counter so he is closer to eye-level with the younger man. "Question one: what is her middle name?"_

 _"M- Margaret, sir," Rudy squeaks. Louise cringes at the mere mention of that horrid name._

 _"What's her favorite color?"_

 _"Not pink."_

 _"Her pet peeves?"_

 _"Stupid people, Canada, and her mother. Sorry, Mrs. Belcher."_

 _Linda lifts her eyebrows. "Hey! Just call me Linda."_

 _"Her worst nightmare?" Bob presses on._

 _"A balance of zero in her bank account."_

 _"First word?"_

 _"Da-da."_

 _"Favorite hobby?"_

 _"Cooking, and um… bossing people around, and… sleeping."_

 _"Her favorite man?" Bob leans in super close to Rudy for this one, maintaining as intimidating an expression as he can get._

 _Rudy recoils in fear. "I- I… I guess it must be you, Mr. Belcher."_

 _"That's right, Rudy. Me, not you. And if you ever, ever hurt my daughter, I will scalp you with that chef's knife right over there and—"_

 _"— and shove his spatula straight down your throat!" Linda joins in with a bloodthirsty tone. She cackles manically as Louise laughs at Rudy's pale face._

 _"Told ya the scalping thing was a valid threat," she says, poking his arm._

 _"Understood?" Bob growls, mustache quivering._

 _Rudy nods vigorously, and when Bob sticks out his hand to shake, Rudy shakes it. He sends a terrified pair of gray eyes in Louise's direction, but she merely shrugs at him. While most times she highly prefers standing up for herself over a guardian stepping in at her defense, in this particular instance she revels in her father swearing a bloody vengeance on her behalf. In a way, it makes her feel like her childhood is not completely gone._

 _"I guess you're a Belcher now, Rudy," she says, slapping him on the back. "Welcome to the bloodbath."_

 _Hell, it really would be a bloodbath if Bob knew she was knocked up._

 _Bob sheds the tough dad armor and buries his face in his arms. "Oh, god… how are we gonna pay for a wedding?"_


	10. testing boundaries

When she meets a stranger in the refrigerated section of a small convenience store, she doesn't expect anything to come of it.

The store is along a dusty, neglected road in the literal middle of nowhere in Montana. Logan made her run in really quick to grab snacks and drinks while he idles out front by a couple of broken-down gas pumps that were probably last functional way before either of Louise's parents were born.

Despite these sketchy factors, she'd grudgingly obliged and entered the place. It is hot and definitely not the most sanitary here, so she plans to make it a quick in-and-out kind of stop.

Then she opens one of the frosty glass doors to grab Logan's stupid dark blue Gatorade out of the cooler, and another hand rests on top of hers.

"Hey there," a low voice says. Louise follows the arm connected to the hand, and finds a pretty— okay, no, _gorgeous_ — brunette around her age connected to the arm. She has on tight jean shorts, a plaid shirt tied just above her belly button and unbuttoned to show maximum cleavage. The rim of her cowgirl hat is drooping low over her forehead, almost concealing her eyes.

"Hell… ooo," Louise drawls, blinking several times as if to clear her vision of this beautiful thing. Surely she'll be met with reality in just a second.

"Don't you blink so much, it's makin' me dizzy," the girl teases. She takes Louise's hand, detaches it from the Gatorade, and lets the freezer door fall shut. "Besides, I wanna see as much of those eyes as I can."

Louise lifts her brows until they must be damn near her hairline. "You… like my eyes?"

"I do," the stranger affirms. "I like green eyes."

Louise tugs on one of the flaps on her bunny ears. "Well, they're more hazel. I mean— no one's ever said that to me before. Logan says they look like sizzling mini swamps when I'm angry."

The girl laughs. "Who's Logan?"

"He's my… he's… a person I know."

Cowgirl steps closer to her, sandals sliding smoothly over the sticky linoleum. Louise notices how shiny her lips are. What is it about other girls' lips? They must have to apply lip balm every thirty seconds for them to stay that shiny, and soft, and… kissable, Louise thinks as those shimmery lips touch hers.

It reminds her of the time she made out with Jessica in eleventh grade. Well, more like _times_. She'd known her friend was gay for a while before that— she had just somehow missed the memo that Jess was gay for _her_. And those times were nice. Smoking weed on the school roof, terrible peach Schnapps swimming in their veins (the stuff was stolen from Linda's liquor cabinet, of course, and replaced with another Schnapps bottle filled with water— thank god for clear alcohol), their lips melding together like hot magma.

Something about girls makes Louise all weak and stuttery. She can always keep up a confident front around guys, but with girls she's a hot mess like Gene with a chocolate fountain. The high feeling her brother got when he made chocolate angels in a puddle of chocolate with half-eaten strawberries surrounding him is similar to the feeling Louise is getting right now.

"If ya'll have to do that in here, at least do it in the lav!" shouts the cashier behind the counter. Louise stumbles back, her Converse squeaking on the floor as if they're startled by the sudden movement.

Cowgirl giggles and offers her hand to Louise. "Whataya say, green eyes?"

The shorter girl's head moves from those slender fingers to the door. Someone enters the store, and the blast of heat from outside wakes her up. She shakes her head and sprints straight out.

Louise collapses, panting, into the car. Logan looks at her in confusion. "Where's the stuff at, Four Ears?"

"Just fucking drive," she breathes, flattening herself against the seat. "Hit the gas now, dude! The people in there are…"

"Are…?" he prompts as they putter up to exit the small lot.

"… bonkers," she finishes.

Soon they're going seventy-five down the dusty, neglected road, skimming over potholes. It's a bumpier ride than a roller coaster, Logan is yelling with delight, and Louise feels like she's discovered herself all over again.

 **oo0oo**

 _"I didn't know you wanted to take business classes," Rudy speaks up abruptly a few weeks later._

 _She grins stiffly at him. "Wow, you must've been holding that one in for a while."_

 _"Aw, c'mon, Lou," he groans, batting away her hand when she fans away a pretend fart. "I feel… bad, y'know?"_

 _"Why?" Louise rinses the radishes for the Burger of the Day (The "we're rooting for you!" Burger, with roasted root veggies), shakes the water droplets off them, and places them on the cutting board. "And if you're gonna launch into one of your spiels, I'm not in the mood for this, 'specially not at work."_

 _"But—"_

 _"Rudes, I'm holding a knife," Louise tells him, letting a creepy smirk taint her features as she holds up the aforementioned object. "Be warned, 'kay?"_

 _That's when he explodes. He marches away and barges into the kitchen to face her head-on. "Louise, please listen to me! I- I feel like I pressured you into something you don't want! And I'd never want you to live a life you were forced into." His face softens, and he takes her free hand. "Lou, you know I love you, right? I'd never—"_

 _She can feel the beads of sweat starting to form just under her skin, threatening to emerge. She jerks her hand away from his. "Woah, woah, buddy. Let's not throw the L-word around, alrighty? And Belchers only in the kitchen."_

 _"I thought you said I was a Belcher!"_

 _"Not yet."_

 _"I'm not taking your last name, Lou," Rudy sighs. He leans on the counter, staring at her until he snags her gaze again. "Look, we don't have to do any of this, okay? We can call off the wedding, we can…" He trails off. His fingernails are embedded in his scalp again, and he's pacing and panting like a dog needing to go for a walk._

 _Louise rolls her eyes and resumes chopping the radishes. "Don't get your tighty whities in a bunch. My mother's already told everyone in the family and every person, friend and stranger alike, in a ten-block radius 'bout the dumb wedding. There's no going back now." Sheepishly, she raises her eyes to look at him. "Just… chill. Don't worry about anything I said before."_

 _His eyes are large and pleading. "A- are you sure?"_

 _She aims the knife in his direction and gives him an "I'm at my wit's end" expression. "Do I look pretty damn sure, Steiblitz?"_

 _"Yep, yep," he mutters. "You sure do."_

 _Quiet settles between them, as she slices and he leans on the counter restlessly. Soon enough the radishes are finished and she moves them aside on the cutting board. "Y'know," she says after a few minutes. "We could always put it up for adoption."_

 _"Right," he rumbles irritably like a car engine that doesn't want to start. Then something snaps in his voice, a brittle twig breaking out of frost, and he adds, "You'd really give our baby away just like that?"_

 _Louise looks at him unwaveringly and nods. "Yeah. Not like I'm attached to it or anything. Right now it's just a clump of cells sucking away most of my food intake and making me feel like shit every day at the crack of dawn." It was true— this kid sapped away her energy like a Hummer guzzling away gasoline. It was not fun, especially considering the active job she was expected to do on the daily._

 _His eyes follow the motion of her knife dicing an onion. "Well…" he sighs. "Maybe one day you'll feel differently."_

 _"Maybe," she repeats, choosing her favorite word out of what he just said to focus on._

 _That night, they drift off in her bed with his hand resting lightly over her midsection. When he thinks she's asleep, he presses a fragile kiss to the still flat area. Under any other circumstance, Louise would kick away his embrace. But deep down, she frets she's already disappointed him enough. She wants to look forward to what's ahead, but when she dissects her heart all she finds is dread and regret. Working every day at the restaurant seems to be her only solace, the last shred of normalcy left in her life. Even her own parents, whenever she has a decent-length conversation with them, always manage to find a way to twist their chat in the direction of what's ahead. While everyone else sees a brightly-lit road ahead, the road Louise sees is lined with dead and dark street lamps._

 _And yet, when Rudy returns to being two hours and twenty-seven minutes away after spring break ends, she still feels the gentle weight of his arm cradling her in bed._

 _No, she tells herself sternly one night a few days since he's been gone. He wasn't cradling her. He was cradling their stupid clump of cells. She bets if he could carry the thing himself instead, he would. If only it was possible to transplant her sore boobs, nausea, and newfound flabbiness to him. Why does she have to be the one to suffer?_

 _She feels nothing._

* * *

 **thanks for the lovely reviews! i hope you continue to enjoy :)**


	11. brainwashed

**PLEASE READ: there is a scene in this chapter that is not for the weak of heart. Read at your own discretion!**

* * *

Logan's birthday starts off relaxing. Her gift to him is a nice BJ and anything he wants from the gourmet spread that is the McDonald's menu.

And so they sit at a table, him feasting on a tray full of fries, sandwiches, mini pies, and such. All she has is a diet Dr. Pepper, which she has touched maybe once since they sat down twenty minutes ago. She's felt crappy for a few days now, even to the point of hurling behind a bush along a Minnesota freeway. Logan had barely pulled over the car in time. She's spent the days since swallowing down bile. It makes her feel like a volcano— searing hot lava bubbling up her throat, threatening to explode out of her any minute.

"Just a twenty-four-hour bug," she insisted to Logan. That was thirty-six hours ago. She hopes he hasn't noticed.

He offers a fry to her for the millionth time, and she shakes her head. His frown deepens as he dunks the fry in ketchup and pops it in his mouth. "You're killing me, Four Ears," he whines.

Louise shrugs.

"If you feel off at all, just say the word and we'll go to the doctor or something."

She snorts. "Like we have healthcare. How would we pay for that?"

The determined, stubborn spark in his eyes annoys her. "We find an ATM and withdraw however much is needed, or see if one of our credit cards will work this time."

"I cut my credit card up a year ago," she says flatly. "There was nothing left on it, and nothing worth putting on it. It didn't even deserve to be cut into a ninja star."

Logan chuckles and bites into an apple pie. "Okay, cash, then."

They relapse into contented silence once more. He scrolls on his phone and she counts the stains on the ceiling, trying to focus on anything but the uncomfortable feeling simmering in her gut.

It's when she reaches for her soda for an experimental sip that the feeling hits her. It runs into her face-first like a brick wall, with a confrontational _thud_. Louise stands, her chair scraping at a cringeworthy volume on the floor.

His head snaps up immediately. "You okay?" She can see him combing her face for an unspoken answer, and she has no response for him that wouldn't also involve a little spitting up.

She races off to the bathroom, crashing through a stall door and slamming it shut behind her. The fact that it's clean makes her feel a little bad that she's about to dirty it up. She crouches over the toilet bowl, letting her innards spew out of her. When it ends, she falls back and lets the cold sweat hit her in full force. Her skin is slick and hair is sticking to the back of her neck. She takes off her bunny ears and pushes away the baby hairs crowding her overheated forehead.

Louise stares down at her cherished hat, massaging her fingers over the worn pink fabric. The bathroom tile is rough and cool against her legs. It's then, as she's looking down at her ears and the cold gray floor, that she notices the blood.

It's coming out of her, gushing out of her, a literal crimson tide. She doesn't understand why looking at this blood is making her feel woozy. She loves gore and horror movies. She could watch a man get beheaded by a chainsaw without even blinking. But this blood, seeping through her jeans and hungrily lapping at her bunny ears, sends a sickly fizzy sensation into her fingers and up through her arms.

Something finally kicks her brain to make a move, and she stumbles over to the toilet, raking down her pants. So much blood. Oh fuck, it's everywhere. She scrabbles for the toilet paper holder, but there's not enough toilet paper in the fucking country to soak up all of this. Pain slices into her lower abdomen. She's never had period cramps this bad. She'd rather be stabbed than suffer through this.

She feels wetness on her cheeks, and she reaches a violently shaking hand up and is met with tears raining from her eyes. A strangled sob claws up her throat, and _Christ_ there's so much blood. She must have no blood left in her body. She must look white as a sheet.

Louise knows she could scream, knows she should or she might bleed out right here. What a death that would be— found frozen mid-cry on the toilet in a McDonald's bathroom. She sniffs, and the door outside her stall creaks open.

"Four Ears?" He's here. There's a pause, a too-long pause, then a shout of "Oh, fuck!" and the stall door is rattling. He's here, and she lets go.

She comes to on a hospital bed. The mattress underneath her is hard as a rock. _Shit,_ she thinks.

Logan is snoring on a chair next to her bed. Louise clears her throat and yells, "Hey!" It takes him a second to wake up. She would slap him if there wasn't an IV needle buried in her good slapping arm.

"Louise," he says. His tone is grave, and a numb dread hollows out her stomach. He never says her real name unless it's serious. "You're gonna be okay."

"Oh, what a shame," she says dryly, for no other reason than to chase away the fog trying to settle on her soul. "I was hoping I'd expel my final breath in a McDonald's bathroom surrounded by a pool of my own blood."

A ghost of a grin appears on his lips. "Glad you're being your same old unpleasant self," he teases. He lets out a slow exhale. "You're gonna be okay," he says again.

"Yeah, I heard ya the first time," Louise mumbles. "When can we get out of here?"

There's a knock on the door, and a doctor steps in. He's a rather unremarkable-looking guy, your average middle-aged rich white dude. Louise can't wait to shovel over all their remaining gas and food money to him.

"Hello, Miss Belcher," he says in his unremarkable voice, and she bites her tongue at the maddening formality of his tone. He pronounces her name in a way as awkward as Tina's teenage existence.

He strolls forward and stops at the foot of her bed. "I'm Dr. Silverman, and I was on call when you were brought in three hours ago." She nods, not finding a response to that worth wasting breath on. "I'm sorry for having to deliver this news to you— it's never easy for anyone to hear this." Pause. She hears Logan's breath hitch. "That blood loss you experienced today was due to a miscarriage."

Logan is still frozen. Again Louise feels the urge to slap him, or Dr. Silverman, or somebody. White-hot numbness spreads through her veins along with the IV fluid. She's heard the word "miscarriage" maybe three times in her life: from her mother, hushed and despondent at the dinner table, after talking on the phone to her friend Ginger; from her teacher, informing and serious, in middle school health class; and from whispered rumors later in high school about a classmate.

All the previous times, Louise was indifferent to the word. But hearing it now, in this context, in reference to _her_ and _her_ body, it has a bitter taste in the back of her throat. She loses all feeling in her head, and it falls back heavily against the too-squishy pillows. As she thinks, the other people in the room with her fade to blurry shapes and the doctor's medical explanation becomes a droning, muffled buzz somewhere miles away.

Logan is the one with a question when she emerges from her mind. "Why did this happen?" he demands.

"I can't say for sure. Sometimes nature just takes its course, and these things happen without any definite explanation. We can conduct some tests to see…" He goes on, and all Louise hears is "You will give us more money if you want to hear what's wrong with you, Miss Belcher."

The angry part of her relishes in the fact that there is no answer to Logan's "why." To think of the times she asked him "why?" and got nothing but vagueness out of him. Now he knows how it feels to be clueless.

"You two can try to conceive again in a few weeks," Dr. Silverman concludes his boring-ass speech. Thankfully, he leaves them alone after a handshake with Logan and awkward eye contact with Louise since both her hands are pinned down by needles and tubes.

"Here's the funny thing," Louise says once the door is shut. "We weren't even freaking trying in the first place."

Logan stares dully at her. "You didn't know?"

"No, Bush, I did _not_ know you knocked me up. I'll try to figure it out in advance next time. My apologies."

He perks up slightly, but his elbows remain glued to his knees, forearms hanging limply. "Next time?" She averts his gaze, and he continues carefully, "I… I was suspecting something. You were acting weird these past couple days. I was hoping you were saving an announcement for my birthday."

Louise studies her left arm, watches some stranger's donated blood flow into it, and suddenly she feels queasy again. She swings her eyes back around to Logan and groans. "Hey, I'm… sorry for giving you a shitty birthday. It's not like I planned this. And I never say sorry, so you better be pretty damn honored."

Her mind wanders into the dangerous realm of maybe, just maybe calling her parents about this. She might need to ask them for money. Then the dumbass's hand is resting on hers, and they look at each other again. His hair looks so blond and disheveled and… blond. She bets their kid would inherit his stupid Bieber hair.

"Would you try again with me, Four Ears?" She likes that he's using "Four Ears" again.

"Well, you really can't try without me," Louise jokes lamely.

He glares at her, but there's nothing harsh in the look.

And she thinks. She thinks about the roller coaster ride today has been, about the liters of blood that must've left her body, about the emptiness she feels inside her now, about how she feels hollow without something she'd never even known was there.

So she says, "Someday."

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise feels like a poodle that has been waaaay over-groomed. She's spent the morning so far being pampered against her will, though calling this "pampering" is definitely a stretch. Getting wedged into her mother's musty old wedding gown, having a skin-suffocating amount of makeup slapped onto her face, and (barely) letting her hair get yanked and bundled into a neat little bun should be any normal person's definition of pampering._

 _And now, standing in front of the floor-length mirror in her parents' bedroom, Louise doesn't recognize herself anymore._

 _"How do you like it, honey?" Linda gushes from just behind her. She towers in the background, poised for another ruthless attack, armed with bobby pins in one hand and hairspray in the other._

 _Louise pokes her cheek and examines the layer of tan foundation that is rubbed off on her fingertip. "I think I would've been fine with just some eyeliner," she answers truthfully._

 _"Oh, shush. You're beautiful," Linda brushes her off, ushers Louise back into the chair in front of the vanity, and resumes her work taming her daughter's unruly locks. Louise wonders if being beautiful only applies when she is buried under all these pore-clogging powders and liquids._

 _"Just some eyeliner?" Her mother's friend Gretchen mocks. "What are you gonna suggest next, those icky bunny ears you used to wear?"_

 _Louise stiffens. She knows the woman is kind of a ditz, so she couldn't possibly understand the magnitude of what she just said. It strikes Louise that, for the first time in ages, she has no clue where her old bunny ears are. Probably shoved in the back of her closet somewhere. Hopefully. Now she has a longing to run down the hall and check, if for no other reason but reassurance, but it's not likely she'll escape anytime soon._

 _Gayle glances out the window with a nervous titter. "Linda, it looks like it could rain."_

 _Her mother scurries over to join her sister at the window and gasps dramatically as if she's on a stage in front of a large audience. It's fitting— Louise feels like she's being prepped for one of those dumb shows her mom adores._

 _"Oh, no," she pipes up dryly. "Whatever will we do if Linda's dream beach wedding is ruined?"_

 _She gets a snort out of Tina, but all the other women in the room glare at her. "Now, you listen to me, little lady…" Linda starts, but Louise cuts in again._

 _"Mother, do you recall my one request for this stupid event? All I asked for was just one thing. For it to be a small ceremony at the courthouse. But what's happened instead?" She waves her arms at the messy room around them. "It's been blown way out of proportion. And let me tell ya, ladies, it really isn't worth it." She shakes her head with a grim expression and stands from her chair. "So I'm done." Linda opens her mouth, but she doesn't even get a chance._

 _"I'm done, dammit!" Louise steamrolls over whatever crap her mother would've spewed out. Angry tears sting her eyes, but it's beyond her why this alone would trigger that strong a reaction._

 _For a second, everyone is silent. Then Gretchen speaks softly, "It's okay, sweetie. It's just the pregnancy hormones making you so upset."_

 _Louise's jaw drops. Her head swivels from one woman to the other, and it hits her that there is recognition on each face. She steps threateningly toward Linda with an accusatory finger out and jabbing the air. "What the shit, Mom? You told the whole world about it! Did you scream it from the top of the Ferris Wheel at Wonder Wharf? Did you write a letter to the president asking him to include it in his next speech? Christ, all I wanted was some privacy! Did you seriously think Rudy and I planned it? I didn't even want to keep the stupid thing."_

 _Her snarl is met with a wounded stare from Linda. "I didn't tell your father," she says, as if that helps._

 _Louise groans and face-palms herself. "Listen," she says in a dangerously low voice. "Nobody's gonna touch me anymore. I'm gonna look and wear what I want, and I sure as hell am gonna say what I want. At least let me have that, because it seems like every other goddamn thing in my life has been flipped upside down."_

 _She storms out of the room and waddles awkwardly into the bathroom. She can barely walk in this stupid dress. A strong urge rises to take out her pocket knife and slash it to tatters, but she stops herself. It would destroy Linda if her gown was mangled. She'd already done enough work on it, having it fitted to Louise's slimmer size and smaller frame._

 _There's a slight knock on the door. Louise begins to grumble "Go away," but then her sister's voice creeps gently through the crack between hinges and wall._

 _"It's me, Tina. Please let me in."_

 _And Louise does. She flips it unlocked and collapses back on the edge of the bathtub. Tina walks in gingerly and shuts the door behind her, offering a wan smile. Louise thinks about how much better this dress would look on her._

 _"Louise," Tina says seriously, brushing back the bangs out of her eyes. She seems hesitant to ask her question, so she takes her time perching herself on the toilet seat. "Do you not want to marry Regular-Sized Rudy?"_

 _Louise snorts a little at his old nickname. Now he is anything but regular-sized; the boy who used to match her height now has several inches on her. But then her smile fades._

 _"I dunno," she answers honestly. "I'm… just frustrated, y'know?" She lifts her head and meets Tina's brown eyes through the thick lenses of her glasses. "This isn't how I pictured things happening."_

 _Things between her and Tina are still kind of rocky, and Louise feels that now more than ever. Her sister doesn't make a move to hug her or even give her hand a comforting squeeze. She just nods, sighs, and speaks as brutally openly as she always has. "It's true that nobody saw this coming. Nobody expected you to be the first of us three kids to settle down. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of us doubted you ever would settle down. And it's still weird to imagine you tying the knot and having a baby."_

 _A wave of nausea rolls over Louise's stomach at that last word, but she swallows the bile sizzling at the bottom of her throat. "Yeah." A few seconds pass as her brain works; then a sly smile slides onto her lips. "It's about damn time I do what everyone expects me to do."_

 _With that she stands and faces the mirror. She wipes off as much of the makeup as she can, leaving only the eyeliner. Tina helps her pick out every last pin in her hair so it's free from the restraints, flowing past her shoulders in dark waves. She rips off a necklace and two fancy bracelets, and beads scatter everywhere. She can't do much about the dress, but she and Tina manage to put some of the hairpins to good use by forcing down a lot of the puffy areas and getting the veil out of her face._

 _Looking at herself in the mirror now, Louise feels a burst of confidence in her chest. She still can't say if marrying Rudy is for the best, but it will definitely feel a lot better marrying him in her own skin._

 _"Thanks, T," she mumbles into her sister's shoulder. Somehow they ended up in a loose embrace, and when they retreat from the hug it seems some of the stiffness has finally melted away._

 _Tina blinks warmly at her. "I wouldn't miss my sister's wedding for the world," she murmurs. "Go get 'em, sis."_

 _And Louise does. Though first, she makes a stop in her bedroom. She rakes through the clutter in her closet, Gretchen's scornful words lingering in her mind, until she stumbles upon her old bunny ears._

 _It's been so long since she held them, yet they feel so familiar in her hands. The same pilled pink fabric massages her thumb as she runs it over and over the hat. She pulls the object close to her, and some doubt washes over her again._

 _Louise frowns. She props the ears up on a lampshade and thinks about how foreign they would feel being on her head again. No one knows her as Four Ears anymore. Now she's the two-eared, knocked up restaurant worker who lost a little piece of herself when she retired that hat._

 _She harbors this nasty feeling that she will lose part of herself again when she makes it official with Rudy today._

 _But she can't bring herself to try on the ears. Instead, she kicks off the painful white high heels and replaces them with her good old Converse. Then she exits her room, the door making a soft click as it closes behind her._

* * *

 **Sorry about the wait. Thanks for reading!**


	12. barely handling things

Louise strolls casually up to the ATM, glances both ways as if she's performing a bank heist, then enters her four-digit PIN into the machine. Logan leans on the car, which is parked at the curb, whistling. She whips around and sends him a venomous glance.

"Shut the hell up!" she hisses through her teeth.

He blanches and the whistling stops. She turns back to the screen with an aggravated sigh, squinting in the sun's glare.

She hits a few more buttons, then tries not to drool as the bills start spurting out into her waiting hand. "Fuck yes," she whispers to herself, gathering the money and counting each and every Grant and Franklin.

"What did you tell them?" Logan asks. He joins her back in the car and shifts it into drive.

"Fender-bender," she answers. "And that I'm on your shitty insurance."

He chuckles and reaches for some of the money, but she jerks it away.

"Hands off, Bush," Louise snaps. "I know how to handle my money."

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise watches Tina head down the aisle ahead of her. Her sister's bridesmaid dress kinda looks like blue sausage casing on her, but at least her smile looks great._

 _Bob is shifting his weight from one foot to the other next to Louise. She rolls her eyes at him. "What's, uh, going on here? Do you really have to take a piss right now?"_

 _"I don't have to pee, Louise. I'm just…"_

 _"Just what?" she prods._

 _Her father rubs his nose and rolls his shoulders a couple times, which stretches his tux to its limit. "Just emotional," he mumbles behind his hand._

 _She shrugs. "Hey, if you wanna postpone this for another time, then by all means please do." When subjected to Bob's annoyed scowl, she sighs. "Just trying to be accommodating. Damn."_

 _Tina has almost reached the makeshift altar. Now Louise feels like shifting her weight too. Bob kneels slightly so he is eye level with her, and places a heavy hand on her bare shoulder._

 _"Louise, are you sure you're ready for this?"_

 _"It's crazy, but I think I have the feeling there's no way I can back out of this anymore." Her words are saturated with sarcasm, and this only seems to aggravate her father more._

 _Bob hangs his head, exhales, then looks her in the eyes again. His gaze is just as deeply brown as the rest of her family's, and just as unlike hers as the rest of her family's._

 _"I just want to make sure you're making the right choice here. I've barely gotten a chance to talk with you in the past month, and I…" He swallows and blinks hard. "I don't want you to take a step you're not ready for. I never expected—"_

 _"— you never expected me to be the one to settle down, blah, blah, I've heard all of that already," she interrupts. "Dad, this is insanely last minute. If you're seriously trying to get me to run away, you're making the urge stronger the harder you squeeze my shoulder."_

 _Bob lightens his grip on her shoulder and says, "I almost don't recognize you anymore." His voice falters the longer he goes on. "You've grown up so much"— again, a nose rub— "a- and… oh, god. You look so much like your mother."_

 _Louise tries not to gag. She pries his hand off her and slowly shakes her head. "If you ever say that to me again, I will end you." Her serious expression is quickly replaced with a contented smirk. "You ready for this shitstorm or what?"_

 _His head bobs up and down hesitantly. He links his arm in hers and together, they emerge from behind the curtain._

* * *

 **sorry, just a short one for now! a lil teaser chap. thanks for reading.**


	13. you don't deserve me

He's close behind her in the club, crotch grinding on her ass, every inch of their skin tacky with sweat. The hot air is pressing down on Louise, so she raises her arms and swipes it away. She's not sure if the strobe lights and dance music will ever be able to exit her brain after they leave tonight.

Someone's drink splashes onto her side, bleeding through her thin green tank top and planting an icy kiss on the bare skin underneath. She swears and looks around for the clumsy culprit, but it's too dark and chaotic to pinpoint just who the dumbass was.

She angles herself toward Logan, and points angrily at the wet spot. He takes one glance down, then yells something she doesn't hear and ventures off into the crowd.

Louise groans. She tries to wring out the spot, and when she sniffs her fingers they stink of cheap alcohol.

 **oo0oo**

 _She's walking down the aisle with a wad of gum in her mouth. It's cinnamon, her favorite kind. Bob's arm is nestled into a tight, protective pretzel with hers, and Louise is eager to be free from it._

 _She knows she has always been the center of attention, and this realization arrives to her again as she walks onward. Every pair of eyes is following her like dogs watching a cat. It's like the hallway in high school all over again— her and Jessica side by side, sandwiched between the lockers and throngs of puberty-stricken imbeciles. Tina was barely noticed, Gene always tried to be noticed, and Louise was noticed. She made damn sure of it._

 _Yet right now, the last thing she wants is to be watched. To ignore the eyes, she focuses on grinding the gum harder with her back molars._

 **oo0oo**

"Hey, bunny girl," a voice slurs somewhere in her personal space bubble. It's followed by a grossly wet cough, the spray of which lands on her ear. Louise shudders and spins around.

This guy's gotta be drunk _and_ stoned, if the rumpled clothes, stinking breath, and bloodshot eyes give any clue. He makes a shape with his lips that is probably supposed to be a seductive smirk, but it looks like a wince.

"Fuck off, jackass," Louise growls.

"I… I…" He stumbles, then rights himself against a support beam. "C'mon, honey, lemme buy you a drink."

She crosses her arms over her chest. "I would rather die a long and painful death in the fiery pit of a volcano than let a bumbling fuckwad like you buy me a drink," she says. Then, with a jerky gesture, she points out the beam he's leaning on. "How about you make out with that nice pole there? I'm sure she'd _love_ to have your slobber all over her." Louise tugs on her leather skirt and turns away just in time to miss Logan giving the guy a well-aimed right hook.

 **oo0oo**

 _Bob stops at the base of the altar. The wind is playing fiercely with her hair, and she swats it out of her face._

 _"Louise," her father says slowly. Their eyes meet through the thin mist of sand roaring about, a preview of the nasty storm to come. "I trust your judgment," Bob says. "A- and if this is what you want for yourself…"— his voice is almost carried away on the breeze— "… then this is what I want for you too."_

 _"Thank you," she mutters. Then their arms separate, and with a final kiss pressed on her knuckles, Bob lets her go._

 **oo0oo**

She hears the guy's yelp of pain, and with a start she whirls back to see Logan shaking out his sore hand with a wad of paper towels bunched up in his other hand.

The dude who hit on her is reeling from the punch, but he doesn't take long to recover. He falls back onto the pole and wears a glare that darts back and forth between Logan and Louise.

"Christ, Logan," she spits, snatching the paper towels away from him and drying off her shirt as best as she can. "I would've figured by now that you _know_ I can fend for myself."

He shrugs and cradles his bad hand. "You don't know what he's capable of, Four Ears."

"Yes, I do know what the fucker is capable of," she retorts. "He's a blubbering drunk stoner who can barely put one foot in front of the other. All he can do is insult me, and you _know_ I don't give a shit what other people think about me."

Her voice has raised enough for people nearby them to stare. She chews the inside of her cheek, desperately wishing she had some gum right now to take out her anger on, and dabs at her shirt some more.

 **oo0oo**

 _She transfers her eyes from a conflicted brown gaze to a set of nervous gray ones. Louise chomps on her gum and Rudy's eyes widen._

 _"Are you chewing gum?" he whispers._

 _She nods curtly._

 _"Lou…" he starts with a groan, but then the officiant begins his boring spiel._

 _"We are gathered here today…"— and that's where the guy loses her. She stands idly, tapping the toe of her Converse against the makeshift platform. She can feel the sand grains blowing around, nibbling her skin and nesting in her hair._

 _Rudy had tried to convince her to write their own vows, but she shot him down early on. This wasn't supposed to be a big deal, so why make it even more complicated than it already is? She hated disappointing him again, but to think of all the other sacrifices she's making— the bastard better be damn happy!_

 _By the time the "I Do" part rolls around, she has to pee like a racehorse. She's starting to sweat despite the chill in the air._

 _Rudy zooms through his "I Do" as if he just wants to get the damn thing over with, and Louise doesn't blame him._

 _"Louise, do you take Rudolph as your husband…"_

 _God, she has to freaking pee._

 _"Do you promise to love him…"_

 _She wonders who else never expected her to be standing up here._

 _"… to comfort, honor and keep him…"_

 _Louise tears her eyes away from his to look at the ocean instead._

 _"… in sickness and in health…"_

 _She thinks of that frosty night, years ago, the night of her eighteenth birthday…_

 _"… and be faithful to him…"_

 _The bundle of nerves in her stomach explodes— or maybe that's just the bundle of morning sickness that resettles there every night._

 _"… as long as you both shall live?"_

 _If she has to stand here much longer, she just might die from boredom. Louise returns her gaze to Rudy and nods her head._

 _"Yep. I do."_

 **oo0oo**

The jackass rubs his jaw and clenches his fingers into a fist. "Why you s- so… protective of this slut, huh?" he asks Logan. "What're— y- you two married or someth—"

Louise grabs his shoulder to keep her target steady, and drives her knee into his puny balls. Then her free hand, also balled into a fist, is sent crashing into his nose.

Pain fizzes in her knuckles, but she barely registers it as pain; it's more like satisfaction.

"Married?" she laughs. "Marriage is a fucking sham."

"Buzz off," Logan adds, and with a whimper the guy stumbles away.

Once he's gone and the crowd has filled in around them again, Logan spins to face her with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Not such a damsel in distress after all," he comments.

Louise throws the used paper towels in his face while he laughs. "Hey, I can't blame ya— it feels so good to make someone's nose crack under your fist."

He picks a towel off his chest and flicks it to the floor. "Well, then, now I know I can't ever be scared with you around to protect me."

She blinks mildly at him. "Shove it, Bush. You know I'm the one who doesn't deserve you."

His smile falters. "Four Ears…"

"I don't. I don't deserve you," Louise admits. Then a slow song comes on, and she rests her head on his chest. They kill the rest of the night spinning leisurely under a soft blue light.

 **oo0oo**

 _He pulls her onto the dance floor and holds her tight. "So, still Louise Belcher, huh?"_

 _"I told you I wasn't taking your weird Jewish last name."_

 _Rudy sighs and smiles, twisting a curl of her hair around his finger. When he twists it as far as he can, he cradles her head in his hand and pulls his wife into another kiss._

 _The reception is, thankfully, indoors; it's another thing that Linda tacked onto the endless list of festivities, but Louise doesn't hate it as much as she hated the actual wedding ceremony. Now it's time for actual partying. And now that Rudy has put a ring on her finger, maybe he'll start to chill a bit about his life plan going out of order. God, she can only hope._

 _Now, by indoors, of course that means the restaurant. What better place to have a wedding reception than a run-down burger joint? It was the only free venue in the area, so it was slightly less that Bob would have to empty his pockets for this whole shindig._

 _The basement is actually decorated decently for once. All the junk is put away upstairs. Strings of lights trace the perimeter of the ceiling and a few strands are hanging vertically to look like the drops of rain currently pounding the world outside. Tables and chairs line the outer edges of the floor, with a space cleared out in the center for anyone dumb enough to want to slow dance— that dumb person being Rudy. It's just rustic enough for Louise to like it. At least one thing in this cursed wedding can be un-fancy._

 _Bob comes downstairs bearing a hearty platter of sliders, and people rush over in a single wave to scarf them down. Bob has his stained old apron on over his suit, which is quite the clash of styles. He's standing next to Linda, and Louise is barely in earshot of her parents._

 _"I just don't understand it, Bobby. That boy doesn't have a mean bone in his body. How in the hell did he end up with our Louise?" Linda frets. Louise can feel her mother's eyes hot on them._

 _"Well," Bob answers with a hitch in his throat. "She's not really our Louise anymore, Lin."_

 _He's partly right. She's not anyone else's Louise. She's her own dang self. But just when the annoying emotional pang is about to hit her, Rudy makes a gagging sound and retreats from her._

 _She snorts at him. "You good?"_

 _He sticks out his tongue to display the offending object. "Lou, how did—"_

 _"Oh!" She smirks and raises her arms. "So that's where my gum went." In a swift movement, she rushes to him and takes her gum back in the most passionate of ways._

 _Rudy breaks the kiss to smile down at her like the round-headed dope he is. "I don't deserve you," he murmurs._

 _Louise tugs at an itchy part of her gown. Damn, the second she gets this thing off will be the best second of her life. "Aw," she says lamely._

 _She feels his hand slip downward to rest on her still flat stomach. "Thank you," he whispers, and her muscles go rigid._

* * *

 **thanks for reading ya'll**


	14. falling into traps

This car is newer, but the memories it contains are nearly the same.

She presses Logan against the window, which is always refreshingly cool no matter the season, and her hands work nimbly to unzip his jeans. Her skirt and shirt are already gone, and since she took the risk of going commando tonight, there's nothing left on her. The crisp air bites her skin while he sucks on her neck and she works on those damn pants.

Each hickey he leaves on her sizzles, like hot grease on a grill— wait, what? Why is she thinking about burgers? She laughs a little to herself and resumes her activity.

 _Mayo the odds be ever in your favor— comes with mayo!_

No, Louise. Stop it.

 _Pepper Jack and Jill burger, comes with pepper jack cheese!_

Okay, fucking hell. She pulls back and pushes him off of her. Immediately disappointment and concern flash in those stupidly, endlessly blue eyes of his and— god, when did her thoughts get so corny?

 _You've got me CORN-ered burger! Comes with corn salsa!_

"Fuck," she hisses, falling back against the opposite window. The dark, empty lot they're parked on suddenly seems too exposed. Suddenly _she_ seems too exposed. She claws for the blanket stored in the back seat pocket and covers her shivering flesh with the fleece.

"Four Ears?" Logan whispers, confusion obvious in his tone. He's slumped on the other side of the backseat, jeans pulled halfway down his legs and his arousal forming a tent in his boxers. When he notices her eyes drifting to it, a fierce red blush colors in his cheeks and he yanks down his shirt to cover it. "Are you okay?"

"You don't have to cover that," she says, a giggle peeking through her irritated words. "I've seen it _plenty_ of times before."

He still looks self-conscious— and Louise doesn't want to shame him for it. Usually they go through their motions so quickly, they forget to stop and actually _look_ at each other. She's hardly ever taken the time to admire his body.

"Do you… want to stop?" he asks.

She can feel the buildup of sweat on her skin, so she flicks the fleece blanket mostly off.

"I'm just thinking," she answers honestly. It bothers her that she's acting a lot like Tina right now. Her sister always wants to think about things, even for just a moment, before she does them. Many times in their childhood, Louise would walk into her older sibling's room and find Tina gazing at the wall, lost in thought. This clashed so much with Louise's impulsive nature, and it annoyed her to no end. Why not just go and _do_ the damn thing already?

Logan rubs his arm. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"My thoughts are worth more than a freaking penny, Bush, and you know it," she growls in return.

He rolls his eyes. "Okay… a dollar for your thoughts?"

"Up."

"Five dollars."

She holds out her hand, and again he heaves a sigh. He reaches behind him, lifting his butt off the seat to retrieve his wallet, pull out a five, and slap it into her hand. "Damn straight," Louise says as she tucks it away. "'Kay, so I was thinking about burger names."

" _Burger_ names?" Logan inclines his head and glowers at her playfully.

"Yeah, I was thinking of burger names. Like, burger of the day names for my dad's restaurant. Like… the 'Let's Taco 'Bout It Burger!'"

Ever so slowly, one of his bushy eyebrows inches closer to his hairline. "Wow, so original. And what would _that_ have on it?"

She leans her head on the window and thinks. "Hmm… maybe throw some cumin in with the burger meat, then top it with lettuce, tomato, Mexican cheese, salsa, and sour cream." She looks proud of herself as she returns her eyes to his. " _Shiiit_. Now I want one of those really bad."

Logan laughs. "Are you high right now, Four Ears?"

"Nope, just exercising my brain."

"Right." He begins to yank his pants back up, but when she shakes her head he stops. "What?"

"Don't."

"I… figured we were done here. If you're gonna be brainstorming burgers you'll never make and all."

She narrows her eyes into irked green shards. "What makes you think I'll never make those burgers, asswipe?"

Logan swings his head around the car's interior. "I don't see a grill or burger ingredients anywhere."

"Wrong. They're always in here," she says, jabbing an index finger on her temple.

"Right," he repeats again, dumbly. "Well… take as long as you need." He reclines on the seat, spine curled in a somehow comfortable position against the armrest built into the door. He sets his phone to a playlist of vintage metal songs, and she watches his eyes trace imaginary patterns in the ceiling.

Louise waits a few minutes, then stretches out her bare legs to entangle them with his. Skillfully her toes dance down his calves, peeling away his jeans like a snake molting its skin. He perks up and stares at her.

"Hey," he says, like an idiot who just wants some word in the air between them.

She chews her lip, removes her eyes from his. "You're not so bad sometimes, y'know that."

"And you're weird," he notes, then dives onto her lips.

 **oo0oo**

 _The awkward atmosphere between Louise and her relatives has done everything but dissipate. Since her rant before the wedding, Linda has obviously been walking on eggshells around her daughter. Gayle and even Tina have avoided her completely, almost as if they're afraid of a savage hormonal attack._

 _Thank fucking god for Gene, Louise thinks as her brother chats her and Rudy up at the table after dinner. So far, Gene has done all of his usual Gene things: show off his mostly clean-shaven face, decorated with little cuts and dabs of forgotten shaving cream; insist Louise smell his shirt to see if the glitter he sprinkled on it has "that magical unicorn fart essence"; and, of course, pull his old keyboard from out of nowhere and play the couple an original tune._

 _"Oh, and you'll love this part!" Gene chirps, batting a hand at his sister. "It's based on the vows Rudy wrote for you."_

 _Guilt drains some color from her face. "What? How'd you get your hands on that?" Rudy is also paling next to her._

 _"I insisted he give them to me after you said no to original vows, and I incorporated part of them into a song!" Gene, as always oblivious to other people's embarrassment, commences playing. As his fingers glide along the keys and Rudy's words roll off his tongue, Louise shrinks a little within herself. Maybe if this dress is big and puffy enough, she could retreat into it like a turtle into its shell._

 _"Oh, Louise, Louise… my feisty girl!" Gene sings. "When I wake up next to you, all my dreams unfurl! I see nothing ahead but sunshine, and happiness. I see nothing but you, me, and our soon-to-be number three. I'm so, so excited to live out the rest of my life with you, Lou! How I love you, I do, I do! Oh, if I could stay awake forever and look at you… I still wouldn't have seen enough of you. How I love you, I do, I do!"_

 _Jesus, it's corny. Now she definitely wants to hide in this dress and never come out. She can feel Rudy's palm go clammy, and when she tries to pull her hand away he only squeezes it tighter._

 _"Thanks, Gene," he mumbles. "I… didn't know you were gonna do that."_

 _"It's nothing! Oh, who am I kidding? It's everything!" Gene grins. "And not to spoil anything, but my wedding present to you guys may or may not be a freshly-burned CD of that very tune." He stands up to go, saying loudly, "It's definitely not that, though." Then, just before he scampers off, he leans close to them and whispers, "It totally is."_

 _Louise chuckles uncomfortably. "Who the hell uses CDs anymore?" she asks, but before Rudy can respond, more gasoline is added to the fire._

 _Linda is standing up at a nearby table, some wedding cake frosting smeared on her nose as if she's the bride. Her stance is a little wobbly, and the almost empty glass of champagne (clearly not her first) is enough evidence to give reason for her wobbliness. Bob is tugging on her dress and muttering something, but there's no going back now._

 _"Oh, shit," Louise whispers as her mother clumsily taps a fork against the glass._

 _The room goes quiet, and Linda smiles. "I just want to give a toast to my beeeeautiful daughter and haaaandsome new son." By the dessert table, Gene crosses his arms and pouts his lower lip. "To Louise and Rudy, everybody!" She raises her glass then, along with everyone else, drinks. Louise relaxes._

 _"Okay," she says, half to herself and half to Rudy. "I think we're in the clear—"_

 _Nope._

 _Linda rambles on, to the palpable disdain of several people. She rests a hand on the table to steady herself and raises her other arm like a preacher. "Y'know, I still can't believe my little lady is married. It seems like just yesterday she was this screaming little brat in my arms, then this screaming little brat in pink bunny ears." Louise face-palms, and Rudy snorts. "And don't get me wrong, she's still a little brat, just minus the screaming. Usually." This gets some politely amused laughs from the audience, and Louise wants to die._

 _Then even more shit is stacked on top of the already teetering tower._

 _"But the part I can't believe most?" Linda hangs her head a moment, exhaling loudly. "That same little brat is having a little brat of her own. And I'm not one to fall in love with someone I haven't met— except Tom Selleck, love ya Tom— but I'm pretty damn sure that kid is going to be the best thing that has happened in a while. I'm gonna grandma the heck outta this kid." Linda sniffs, and again her champagne glass is thrust upward. "To Louise and Rudy and my grandbaby!" she yells. Everyone claps and drinks._

 _Except for Bob. Surprise flickers on his face like a flame. Then that flame turns into a wildfire and spreads like a freaking wildfire. His body goes stiff, his eyes widen, his eyebrows touch his receding hairline, and he swings to look at Louise in shock._

 _Jesus Christ, Linda, Louise wants to say, but instead she smiles and looks at Rudy just to avoid her father's scrutiny. "Hey, Rudes, wanna pass me the wine?"_

 _"No way," he says, and then Bob is rising out of his seat._

 _"What?" Bob says, his voice strained. He glances back at his wife. "Lin, are you joking? You're joking, right?"_

 _Linda sinks into her chair and grins sheepishly. "Oops." Her eyes flash over to a murderous-looking Louise, then back to a murderous-looking Bob. "Well, cat's outta the bag!"_

 _Good fucking going, Lin, Louise's thoughts rage._

 _Bob's head is moving in all directions and moving so fast, Louise wonders if it'll do a complete 360. "Why is nobody else surprised?" he demands. "Am I the only one who didn't know?" He searches the faces of everyone nearby him, fixating on Mort and Teddy in particular. "Even you two knew and didn't tell me?" They frown and avert their eyes._

 _Finally Louise speaks up. "You would've found out eventually," she tells him with a shrug. Anger is boiling in her gut too. Linda really did tell the entire town every detail, didn't she?_

 _Bob marches over to her and Rudy, fists hanging heavy like boulders at his sides. "This is why you got married so suddenly, isn't it?" he asks quietly. "I should've known. Oh my god." He massages his temples, then kneels down to eye-level with Louise, and she feels nine again. "I thought you were smarter than this, Louise. I didn't want you to fall into this trap." Then he rises and walks upstairs._

 _She and Rudy exchange uncertain glances. And an hour later, after the reception has ended, they're still uncertain._

 _"Are you okay?" he asks once they're safely in the cheap hotel room._

 _Louise sets down her bag and looks around. A queen size bed, dusty TV, and mildew-lined bathroom— now this is what you call a honeymoon suite. "Yeah," she replies. "Actually, no. Can you please take this godforsaken thing off me?" She yanks at a frill on her gown. "This part under my armpit has been itchy since I put it on, and I've had a fucking wedgie for hours."_

 _Rudy goes around the bed and helps her wiggle out of it. "I could've pulled out the wedgie for you," he says, circling behind her and giving the tight fabric by her waist a hearty tug. "Y'know, discreetly."_

 _"Damn, I should have thought of that," she agrees. "Let's come up with a wedgie code phrase for next time. Like… 'I love you.' It's foolproof because you know I'd normally never say that."_

 _He chuckles. A dusting of red dances across his cheeks. "Sounds perfect."_

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	15. spoken aloud

Ohio is nice, Louise decides. But as they meander through the streets of some small town, going along as idly as they would meander through supermarket aisles, she also decides that they must turn south again and hit Nashville and hell, why not Louisville while they're at it? Now they're only one full state away from her family, and that close proximity is too intimidating for her to face yet. Or ever.

Since they left Chicago, every day has been all about naps in the car and exploring whatever weird place the road leads them to. All the time, Logan talks.

"We could travel the entire country all over again," he says one day, eyes wide like crystals as she unbuckles herself and sticks her head out of the sunroof. His voice melds with the thousands of types of winds roaring past her ears. Her hair is a black mane billowing behind her, her bunny ears hanging onto almost nothing.

"We could stop at every terrible motel all over again," he says another day, tucking a glossy strand behind her ear. His cheeks are the perfect kind of rosy that make tiny fireworks explode in her chest.

"Or go back to New Orleans," he says today, one sneaky arm wrapping behind the small of her back and pulling her in close to him. She makes a disgruntled noise but he doesn't let her go. "Far, far away."

Somehow, every day, he manages to remind her to function.

"You were a feisty little thing when I first met you," he notes as they peer into a shop window, then trek onward.

"You sound like my mother. And you _know_ how much I love her."

He's not finished yet. "The first time I ever looked at you, I thought, 'Look at those stupid pink bunny ears. This girl must be the most harmless thing on the face of the Earth.' Boy, was I wrong."

"Please stop."

Logan flicks one of her bunny ears. "I remember putting that hat on for the first time, too. It's quite a feeling. I think that hat does something to whoever wears it. It's like… supernatural. Some evil power is secreted from the hat, through your skull all the way to your brain."

"Why the hell are you bringing this up, Bush?"

"I'm just thinking," he says innocently. She turns away her dagger eyes from him and resumes walking. Then the ears are gone from her head, and the uncomfortable sensation of fresh air hitting her scalp arrives.

"Son of bitch, Logan!" Louise yells. He's coasting down the sidewalk, jumping over a taut dog leash and leaving people double-taking in his wake. She speeds along, hot on his trail and fury swimming in her veins.

She catches up with him in no time— this particular chase is familiar on any stretch of sidewalk, road, grass, or sand— but he's still a step ahead of her. The hand that darts for her ears, which are sitting at an improper angle on _his_ head, is grabbed and enclosed in an envelope of his sweaty fingers.

"Your fingers are gross, let go," she demands. Logan does, but not without getting a long French kiss out of her first. The workout is almost too much for her tongue to bear, but he tastes amazing, so she keeps going. It's a wonder how those nasty clammy fingers and this flavorful mouth can be on the same idiotic body.

"Four Ears." His pet name for her hits her parted lips in a warm, gentle puff of syllables.

"I almost made you No Ears once," she growls. "I can do it again." With that she collides her forehead against his, and the spark of pain that blooms in her skull is masked by the glow of satisfaction. She takes off and he's right behind her.

Logan catches her another few blocks down, and he's still holding his forehead like the weak little boy he is. "Ow!" he snaps at her. Delayed reaction much?

She crosses her arms. "Aw, do you want me to call Cynthia and ask her to kiss your wittle boo-boo?" she asks in a baby voice.

"If you call my mother I will—"

She cuts into his sentence with another joining of lips. They pull apart with a wet smack, and he's glowering down at her. "Now you know how it feels," she tells him sweetly.

He leans against a building and snorts. "Anyway, it wasn't you who almost cut off my ears, it was that weird biker gang you hired."

She shrugs. "They owed my family a favor."

Logan rubs his stubble and thinks. "Hmm. Don't they still owe _my_ family a favor? Since my dad helped that one chick have her kid and all."

"Yeah, on a table in _my_ dad's restaurant." Louise crinkles her nose, then her phone starts ringing. She plucks it out of her pocket and sees her mother's caller ID. _Ugh_. It's always Linda who calls to pester her. At least Bob understands that Louise does not want to be disturbed once a month! It's like Linda thinks her daughter is obsessed with her or something.

Grudgingly she picks up and turns away from Logan while slyly flipping him the bird.

"What, Mom?" she sighs into the device.

"Hello, baby! Oh, I haven't heard from you in ages! How is everything with you and your almost-hubby?" Linda chirps. She's literally a living exclamation mark— like Gene, everything that leaves her mouth is way too upbeat.

Louise settles against a lamp post and groans. "I'm really not in the mood to talk. Can we just do this later?"

Linda doesn't deflate one bit. If anything, her balloon of excitement is inflated even more. "Listen, honey, we have some news from our end," she says distractedly, as if she can't focus on anything besides this supposed "news."

"'Kay, shoot."

"You're gonna be having a little niece or nephew in a few months!" Her mother has never been shriller; Louise has to pull the phone away from her ear somewhat. Even when it's not pressed right against her ear, she can pick up Linda's choked-up cries of, "I'm gonna be grandmaaaaa!"

When the screams die down, she returns the device to her ear and mutters, "That's great."

A few minutes later, she hangs up and glances at Logan. "Told ya my sister got married 'cause she's knocked up," she says, and he forks over every last cent he'd bet in Tina's favor.

After that, they return to their aimless stroll down the crack-riddled sidewalk in some town in Ohio. She can't seem to get rid of the burning smoke that has newly settled in the pit of her stomach. There must be something wrong with her.

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise gathers her hair into a side ponytail that falls past her right shoulder. The thin, simple silver band on her left ring finger catches the morning sunlight filtering through the dirty shower window. She lets out an inaudible sigh, then turns and heads downstairs._

 _The restaurant is already somewhat busy for a Tuesday morning. Teddy and Mort have taken up their usual posts at the counter, sipping coffee. Linda is chatting with three early bird customers in the booth closest to the door. She offers her daughter a weary smile as Louise's entrance is marked by the telltale bell._

 _"Your father's already back in the kitchen, hon. These folks here are saying there's a huge pack of cyclists set to arrive here soon, and they're gonna be ravenous. Prepare for a lunch rush."_

 _Louise nods and slips through the door to the kitchen. Bob is silent, and the only sound to be heard is the burgers sizzling on the grill. She coughs into her arm so he isn't startled by her sudden appearance beside him._

 _His dark eyes bolt upward, study her for a second, then return to the burgers. "Can you cut up something?" he mumbles._

 _Her brows knit together. "Something? Gee, can't get any more specific than that, Dad."_

 _"I… haven't thought of a Burger of the Day yet," Bob replies, resignation adding some sad weight to his words._

 _Louise shrugs and reaches for the bag of avocados sitting on the counter. "Easy. 'Between a guac and a hard place burger.' We have these avocados we didn't use from the weekend, should be ripe by now. Just make them into guacamole and we're good."_

 _If their situation were just the tiniest bit different, right now Bob would be praising her. "Wow, Louise, you've really got a knack for thinking of punny burger names. Bravo!" And Linda would call from out front, "She's got the same sharp mind you have, Bobby!"_

 _Instead, silence reigns. She washes her hands then snatches her apron from a hook. With every passing day, she notices it getting a little tighter, and the string getting a little more difficult to tie behind her back. It's like she stuck a basketball under her shirt, and every day a little more air is added to it. It's a terrifying development to watch, so she tries to avoid looking down at her middle whenever possible._

 _Now that she's far enough along, her appearance garners a wide variety of reactions from the assortment of idiots in their town. "Who's the father?" or "Boy or girl?" she's often been asked, or there's always the good ol' uninvited pressing of hands to her stomach. Her favorite, however, has to be when some entitled asshole hits on her while her back is facing him— then she turns, and bam. It's a nice way to ward off unwanted attention from gross guys, and that's the only positive about this experience she's discovered so far._

 _Bob is still acting all chilly toward her about it, no matter what she tries. Finally, Louise realizes where she got that hard-headed stubbornness from._

 _Now, she's scooping the seed out of an avocado and sneaking side glances at her father. He's sliding a burger onto the waiting bun and perfectly centering a slice of tomato and a leaf of crisp lettuce above it._

 _She suppresses a groan and returns her attention to the avocados. Bob hasn't allowed her to man the grill in nearly a month— "I don't want you near where you could get splattered by hot grease"— and it's maddening. What the hell is the difference now? It's not like being pregnant makes her susceptible to melting away if one drop of grease touches her skin._

 _In just a half-hour, the beginnings of the lunch rush group start coming in. Louise is dicing tomatoes, squirting lime juice, chopping cilantro, and mashing the avocados, then slopping a couple spoonfuls on top of each burger her dad holds out. It's an easy two-person assembly line, and a quiet one at that. Louise has rarely been one to prefer silence, and in no time she's shifting her weight from one foot to the other._

 _"So," she says after another antsy minute. "Looks like all that advertising I've been doing online has helped." She wishes that came out as a bit more snarky. Or maybe a bit less._

 _Bob grunts. "Yeah, thanks for doing that." Pause, as she tops another burger with guac, then he goes, "Hey, you have that big batch of guacamole made. How about you, um, go help your mother serve and bus tables out front?"_

 _"Or hire another employee," she grumbles under her breath. As Louise passes him, she notices his back tense up, and she resists face-palming herself. Damn it, Louise. Just shut up for once._

 _Before he can counter that, she bursts through the door to the bustling eatery. Linda could use a pair of roller skates with the way she's moving back and forth from the booths to the counter. She's printing someone's receipt at the register when Louise catches her eye._

 _"Are you okay, honey? Tired?" Linda asks, sympathy adding an annoying glint to her gaze. Louise starts to shake her head no, but her mom continues: "How about you take a break? I remember constantly needing naps when I was in your shoes. I can call you back down in an hour." She hands the customer their change and hums cheerfully to herself, and it makes Louise's blood boil._

 _"How about I decide what I want to do?" she complains, crossing her arms and leaning against a bar stool. "First Dad kicked me out of the kitchen, now you're kicking me out of the restaurant. Must I remind you I'm a freaking adult now who can make decisions for herself?"_

 _Linda runs a hand through her hair absently. "Muffin, I love ya, but you gotta take it easy sometimes. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure."_

 _Louise can almost feel the vein pulsing in her temple. "It's not high!" She practically yells this, and suddenly sees some sense in her mom's words._

 _"Yes, but it's getting close to high, and I'm not risking anything against my grandbaby." Fierce brown eyes score the younger woman's face like lasers. "So if you won't take the nap, then just stand behind here and manage the register, a'ight?"_

 _And with that, Linda is back to her sing-songy self, belting out an energetic ditty as she moves to clear a recently-vacated table. For less than a second, Louise wonders what she did to deserve her. Then the next second, she's focused on forking over a five and two dimes in change to a sweaty cyclist._

 _The next week, she has a doctor's appointment. Linda insisted on giving her the entire day off— which is unnecessary— to Louise's chagrin. As a loving display of her resentment, she forbids her mother from coming with her. Not like Bob could run the place on his own, anyway._

 _Rudy told her he'd meet her there, but of course he's twenty minutes late. Of course this is the one time they call her name on time, and then she has to awkwardly tell them to wait for her slowpoke husband (that word still doesn't roll off her tongue quite right) to get his slowpoke ass here._

 _When he finally arrives, she somehow stops herself from slapping him. The nurse takes them back, and she lays on the weird bed/table thingy, then the doctor comes in. Rudy matches her smile for smile, but Louise can tell he's nervous. He's doing the thing where he clamps his fingers tightly on something— in this case it's the metal edge of her bed, and it's leaving those little finger-shaped outlines of sweat. Oh, and there's the panting as always._

 _That terrible cold gel is spread over Louise's midsection, and she bites back a shudder. She almost asks him to hold her hand, but that'd be a silly thing to ask, right? Right._

 _Dr. Smiles glides her tool through the gel, and there the little thing is, up on the screen in all its fuzzy black and white glory. The doctor's still grinning widely, as if she's the idiot having a baby. She points out the head to them. It just looks like a lopsided blob to Louise, but she nods along. It's like math class back in high school— look alert, nod along, pretend you know what the hell is going on._

 _"Would you like to know the gender?"_

 _That curveball comes out of nowhere. Rudy opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens, then closes again. Louise so badly wants to hit him. She turns and makes unwavering eye contact with the doctor. "I think we're good." Silence. She's not getting it. "Like, no. We don't want to know."_

 _"Wait!" Rudy explodes. Louise turns to him, irritation fiery in her cheeks. "Could you write it down and put it in an envelope? For those who want to know." And the doctor does._

 _As they walk through the parking lot, one sonogram copy each in hand, she speaks up, "Look, if my mother is planning some insane gender reveal party, tell her to call it off right now or I will. You all know I don't want to be forced into any of that overrated girly bullshit."_

 _He chuckles. "No, I promise you she's not planning anything diabolical."_

 _"Oh, no, I would love something diabolical. We're talking about Linda here, though. She's a sickly sweet unicorn and I'm the soul-sucking phantom of the family."_

 _They reach Rudy's car, and he shrugs. "I swear, there is no party or shower or anything in the works. You've made it clear that's not what you want." His eyes dart down to the envelope in her hand. "Can I… can I check that out?"_

 _She narrows her eyes. "What's it to you, Sir Round Head?"_

 _He sighs good-naturedly. "I know you don't want to see, but at least let me. Please, Lou."_

 _She stares at the envelope for a long moment that in actuality is only fleeting; then it's passed over to his hands and he shakily slides the paper out. She almost wishes she could see the single inked word through the paper, but it's impossible to tell in the glaring sunlight._

 _Rudy's eyes widen, then he lets out a breath, grins, slides the paper back in and hands the envelope back to her. "Thanks. I love you." She moves to reach behind him, but he takes her hand and directs it away. "That's the real 'I love you,' not code word for 'I have a wedgie.'" He plants a warm kiss on her lips, then unlocks his car. "I love you, Louise. Not the wedgie kind of love," he reminds her._

 _Not the wedgie kind of love. How romantic, she muses as she settles behind the peeling faux leather wheel of the ancient family land barge. For too long, she gazes down at the envelope in her lap, then groans and tosses it and the sonogram into the empty passenger seat that should be filled._

 _Hours later, the sonogram is pinned up on the fridge amongst yowls of joy from Linda. As Louise enters her bedroom that night, she hears the familiar crackle of a small piece of paper sliding out of an envelope. She pretends not to hear the word shrieked aloud and collapses into bed._


	16. weightless depth

Logan drops the L-bomb on her on what seems like an average day. It _should_ be an average day. They're in the car, her driving and him beside her with his head hanging out the window. He looks like a dog, and she half expects him to let his tongue loll. Instead, his hair goes wild, and he lets the wind play with his gross stringy bangs.

They're just talking, y'know how these things go. Arguing over which old rock CD to pop in next, and of course he insists on the same stupid Nirvana disc they must've listened to a hundred times by now. Louise tried to crush it to smithereens once but it's clearly indestructible. Hell, she may have even tried to burn it, but that only resulted in scalded fingertips. She hates how Logan's stupid cliché taste in bands is seemingly unavoidable.

"No," she says.

"Yes," he says.

"No."

"Yes."

" _No_ , Bush."

It's when she's looking away to make a left turn that he sneaks in the cursed CD, and the familiar ear-bleeding first track starts playing. She groans, and that's when it happens.

First he chuckles. It's the slight, almost inaudible chuckle he makes when he's reluctant to show her that she made him laugh, because he damn well knows the consequences. Only once did he ever make the fatal mistake of saying "You're cute when you're angry."

Then his face retreats from the open window, freezing his hair in a terribly windblown position. His mouth opens, and that mischievous cobalt spark flares in his gaze. Her stomach constricts and sweat emerges on the steering wheel under her hands.

"I think I love you, Four Ears," Logan says. "I really do."

She stops breathing for a precious moment. She turns his phrase over and over in her head, trying to make sense of it. If only her harried brain _could_ find an explanation. After all these years, _now_ is when he drops the L-bomb? Whatever happened to "I hate you, Four Ears"? That was perfectly adequate!

 _But_ , her brain steps in to remind her, _adequate doesn't mean perfect._

"You… do?" Louise finally responds.

"Yeah," he says. She hates the laugh buried in that single word.

She's getting too distracted by the very urgent matter at hand, so she pulls over into the narrow shoulder of the road. Chances are they're not supposed to pull over here, but she couldn't give less of a shit right now.

Logan leans forward, seatbelt straining to hold him back. Floppy blond strands fall in his face, and she can't help but marvel at him. _What a hideous god._

"Lou—" he starts, but is cut off by a fierce slap. When he turns his injured cheek away from her, she hits the other one. If one of those doesn't make him swallow some teeth, he'll sure as hell spit a few out.

"Fuck," he mutters. "Am I—? Fuck, am I bleeding?" Sure enough, a harmless dribble of blood escapes from the corner of his mouth. He scrambles in the center console for something as she fumes.

"You've never said that before," she growls.

Logan sits up and faces her, dabbing his mouth with crusty old Starbucks napkins. God, she hates Starbucks. "I think I've said fuck plenty of times, man."

She pulls the key out of the ignition and throws it down into her lap. "Were you serious when you said you… love me?"

"Yes!" he sputters. "Why would I not be?"

"You were laughing when you said it!" she yells back.

Logan shrugs half-heartedly, pulling back the napkin for a second to examine it. "I… look, sorry, okay? I figured it was assumed we loved each other. Like, there's been so many times where I felt like there was this… unspoken confirmation between us. I dunno."

Her nerves are buzzing wires. When she reaches forward to him, her fingertips feel electrical. For once, she has no urge to slap him. Instead she snatches the napkins away and lets them flutter to the floor like bloody autumn leaves. "It was three drops of blood," she chides him.

"Felt like fifty," he retorts.

"You were merely given a warning slap—"

"— _two_ warning slaps—"

"— you were _not_ run over by a truck," Louise finishes. She peels his upper lip back and snorts. "Damn, you need to floss more. Your gums are bleeding."

Logan scratches behind his head. "Yay gingivitis."

She blinks and cups a hand behind the shell of her ear. "What was that? Did I hear you say 'Hey, I'm a dumbass?' I think I did."

"That's not even _close_."

Louise unbuckles herself and connects her lips to his, gently slurping away the salty blood residue. She easily conceals her surprise when his hand rests on her chest and pushes her away.

"So does this mean you love me too?"

She chews on the inside of her cheek and restarts the car. The engine roars to life and she merges back into traffic. "What do you think?"

He leans an elbow on the armrest and smirks affectionately up at her. "Unspoken confirmation," he says.

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise remembers Rudy's ninth birthday party. She remembers stealing the bouncy house away from the other party and pushing it out onto the lake at the park. She remembers feeling the sudden weightlessness when she soared in the air, and she remembers the abrupt, heavy depth that hit her feet when gravity pulled her back down. She remembers thinking, just for a brief moment, that she could drown in that bouncy house._

 _She feels the same way now. Or close to it, at the very least. Right now she's reclined on the couch in the living room, which is swathed in darkness. The TV is a dull flicker somewhere in her peripheral, but she isn't paying attention to it. The entire apartment is dark, and if she concentrates hard enough, the couch disappears under her and she's floating like she did in that bouncy house over a decade ago._

 _The TV remote is taunting her from all the way at the other armrest. It's so far away, and she's so alone. Her parents have gone on a little weekend vacation— she'd practically pushed them out the door, only to discover afterwards that they took the key to the restaurant with them. At the time, she was furious. Why can't they just freaking let her run the place for two days? She's not disabled. She's a born moneymaker. She'd make it work despite her… temporary limits._

 _But now, as she faces this disheartening dilemma, she realizes that just maybe Bob and Linda were right to put her out of work for a while._

 _This remote is so damn cruel. She can barely make out its shape from where it's perched ruefully on the other end of the couch. With much effort and a determined grunt, she tries to pull herself upward to no avail._

 _She falls back onto the stupid scratchy beaded pillow Linda had placed there. Her head bounces miserably against it._

 _"What'd you expect, Louise?" she mumbles to herself, half-awake. "You haven't seen your feet in almost two months." There's no way in hell she'll be able to reach that remote without some help or some creative thinking._

 _But her mind is dead. Her brain hasn't functioned quite right for a while now. The last day she was allowed to work in the restaurant, she almost mistook one of her fingers for a carrot she was chopping. Ever since, everyone has treated her like she's the most fragile thing ever; mentally, physically, and emotionally._

 _She turns her neck to view the TV. Some terrible 90s rerun is on, and her ears are ready to bleed. With a groan she scrabbles for her phone on the coffee table. Once she has it, she checks the time._

 _Past one in the morning. Getting to bed would sure be nice, but she doubts she'll be treated to that tonight. She drowns out the TV with her thoughts and prepares to drift off on this saggy 25-year-old couch._

 _She feels weightless again, in that state between wakefulness and slumber. She's lying on her back in a park, soft grass tickling her arms, and holy shit— she can see her feet! She wiggles her bare toes and sighs contently. The sky is bright blue, and the puffy clouds look like white cannon smoke staining the endless backdrop. Fading jet trails crisscross the sky. She hasn't dreamed this well in ages._

 _Just as Louise thinks this, she startles back to reality. The dark ceiling greets her mournfully with all its beautiful old water stains. She reaches for her phone again— wow. Ten whole minutes of sleep. Guess that's it for tonight._

 _Her mind feels fuzzy, and she can't seem to shake away the cotton stuffed in what is surely a hollow brain cavity. She thinks and thinks, trying to remember something that must have been forgotten._

 _Rudy._

 _Rudy!_

 _He said he was going to visit tonight. Right? It was definitely tonight. Where is he?_

 _Panic sizzles in her blood. Louise manages to prop herself up on the armrest closest to her, breathing laboriously. "Shit," she whispers. "Shit. Shit."_

 _What if something happened to him? What if he got in a car accident on the way here? What if his entire college campus burned down? Shit. Shit. He must be dead._

 _Louise taps frantically through her phone until she finds the wanted contact. She doesn't hesitate a second before hitting the green call button._

 _It rings several times before there's a click and a drowsy "… hello?"_

 _"Tina," Louise says immediately. "Tina, something's wrong."_

 _"Wha…" her sister mumbles. "Louise… what are you talking 'bout?"_

 _Angrily the youngest Belcher slams a hand on the coffee table. "This is not a fucking joke, T! Rudy said he would visit tonight and he's not here." The only physical thing she can do is gulp and pant like Rudy during an asthma attack, and Tina's lack of haste to respond is only making the gulping and panting worse. "Tina!" she yells again._

 _"It's 1:22 in the morning," Tina points out dumbly._

 _"I know. You think I don't know that? Where is he, Tina? Did he call you? Please tell me he called you, or— or something. Did he call Gene?"_

 _She can practically hear Tina's groggy head creak as she shakes it side to side. "No, he didn't call me, and I know he didn't call Gene because he's here with me right now."_

 _"He's with you?"_

 _"He as in Gene," Tina yawns. "Look, I'm sure Rudy is fine. How about you get some sleep and we can figure this out in the morning, or… whatever."_

 _Louise grinds her molars. "Ugh, you're just like Dad! Always pushing problems away and away until they explode in your damn face! Son of a bitch!" She leans forward for a second, trying to catch her breath. Then another idea pops into her head, and it falls all the way into her stomach like a heavy stone. "… what if he's cheating on me?" she whispers._

 _"He's not cheating on you," Tina says._

 _"Oh, wow, that was so reassuring, T. Thank you for that. I totally feel better now!"_

 _"Louise, I… I think you need to calm down. Remember your blood pressure."_

 _Her knuckles are bone white around the phone. "My blood pressure can go to hell!"_

 _Tina sighs. "At least then it would be low." There's a pause filled with Louise's panting, and the older sister goes on, "You know, because hell is below us? Never mind."_

 _"Jesus Christ," Louise whimpers, gnawing the fingernails on her other hand. "You're useless. I'm just gonna call him. And if he's with someone else, I'll…" She's too flustered to even finish the sentence, so she just ends the call with Tina and scrolls to start a call with Rudy. His contact is aptly situated under "I" as "Idiot" with a puke emoji. When he caught sight of that a while back, his deadpan response had been "How classy, Lou."_

 _She'd give anything to hear him say that again._

 _The phone rings once, twice, thrice. Then there's the familiar click and a bleary "Lou?" is muttered into her ear. Just hearing his voice sends a little electrical current down the right side of her body. No type of science could explain the effect he has on her and how much she hates the power he holds over her._

 _She realizes she hasn't said anything yet, and his voice comes in clearer this time. "Lou? What's up? Are you okay? Is the—"_

 _"I'm fine," she breathes._

 _"And the—"_

 _"Fine," she interrupts testily. "Where are you?"_

 _He inhales softly. She pretends the following exhale is breathed warm and gentle into her neck. It makes her heart burst._

 _"I'm two hours and twenty-seven minutes away," he states. "You know that."_

 _Louise slumps back and chews her lip. "You were supposed to drive down here tonight."_

 _"What?" Rudy asks. "No… I don't think I was." She can tell he's treading carefully, terrified of disagreeing with her when she's in "this state," as Linda calls it._

 _"You said you'd drive down Saturday the nineteenth."_

 _"Lou. Babe." He chuckles. "That's next week. Today is the twelfth. Or, I guess the thirteenth now."_

 _Her jaw hangs open. Somehow she'd missed that information on her lock screen. "… right," she finally says, laughing nervously. "I… I knew that. I was just screwing with you." She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly even though he can't see her. "Are you laughing at me? If you're freaking laughing at me right now, I swear Rudolph—"_

 _He snorts. "I'm not laughing at you."_

 _The line goes silent for a minute, and they just listen to each other breathe. She can faintly hear the sound of a laugh track in the background from his end, and she wonders if they're watching the same shitty Seinfeld rerun._

 _Then there's a tiny ripple of movement inside her, and immediately her heart pounds faster. She hates when this happens. Every time the little parasite moves, it either nails her in the bladder or tries to kick her spine into a skewed shape. She adjusts her position and moans irritably._

 _"What? Are you okay?" he demands again._

 _Louise rubs her eyes. "It's nothing, just your stupid kid trying to punch out my kidney or something. Hasn't let me sleep a full eight hours in weeks."_

 _"Since when have you ever slept eight hours?" he asks, words tinged with laughter. Then his voice smooths over and gets all serious again. "I wish I was there."_

 _"No, you don't. It's miserable here. I'm as big and angry as a beached whale. I'd probably saw off your balls in your sleep and burn them." She thinks for a moment, then nods. "Actually, no. I would definitely do that."_

 _"I'm sorry if you're hurting. I promise I'll be back home before you know it. I'm so close to graduating," he says as if she doesn't know this._

 _Suddenly a weighty tiredness takes over her, resting on her shoulders like a warm, heavy quilt. She swallows a yawn and counts the discolored spots on the ceiling. "Remember your ninth birthday party?" she murmurs._

 _He's quiet for a beat or two, then hums. "Yeah, the one you sabotaged?"_

 _"Well, that's harsh," she counters. "I was just a girl on a mission."_

 _"A selfish mission."_

 _She doesn't notice she's crying until her cheeks are slick with tears. Jeez, crying is so fucking annoying. She sniffs._

 _"Hey," Rudy says, humor again transitioning to seriousness. "After it got all messed up, you still did everything you could to make me happy again."_

 _"Still wasn't as good as your spoon puppets," she mumbles. Her head droops. She's drifting off again._

 _"I wanna see that side of you more often, Lou. I know it's somewhere in you."_

 _She mutters something unintelligible, and lets him lull her to sleep._

 _"I love you both," he says. Then she's out._

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	17. fading in, fading out

"You're beautiful," he tells her. They're lying on the roof of the car, hot metal stinging their bare skin. Sunlight catches in his hair and his eyes seem to reflect it.

"Stop," she mumbles behind an arm.

"You're the most amazing girl I've ever known," he presses.

She rolls onto her back, hair spreading like a fan. "Pretty sure I'm the only girl you've ever talked to."

"Funny. But seriously, you're super cool, Four Ears. Now can you please lend me twenty bucks?"

"No."

"Please."

"I'd sooner light my ears on fire."

Logan tugs her over to him and taps his nose against hers. "Please," he begs. "I know you have your money stored somewhere."

"I barely have enough to rub two pennies together, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Come on!"

"I will get into the car and drive off with you still on the roof, asshole," Louise snaps.

He wiggles his furry eyebrows. "You wouldn't."

"Do you know me at all? Of course I freaking would."

"How about just ten, then?"

"No can do."

"I love you."

"Aw, that's sweet. No."

His eyes are narrowed into icy blue shards as he stares at her. He's close enough for his hot breath to tickle her cheek. She twists her head to the sky again; this position only lasts a second before he gently turns her face back to him and kisses her fully and vigorously, hard enough to take away her coffee breath. She almost misses his hand sneaking to the back pocket of her jeans to pickpocket her.

Almost.

 **oo0oo**

 _"You're beautiful," he tells her. "So beautiful, and so strong. Everything will be okay."_

 _"Stop," she mumbles behind a hand as she glances around the room. What is she forgetting?_

 _"Everything'll be okay," Rudy repeats again as if she hadn't spoken. He's probably talking more to himself than her anyway._

 _Louise rakes her eyes over the room again. A minute ago she knew what she was searching for, but once again her useless brain has failed her. She can only pray to god that once this thing is out of her in a few hours, she'll be back to her usual sharp self._

 _She paws through the tote bag Linda had packed for the hospital, and even though everything that is needed seems to be there, Louise knows that there is something missing._

 _"Dammit," she mutters, zipping it up and hefting it onto the crook of her arm. Whatever. Hopefully it wasn't anything important._

 _Rudy makes a noise in his throat and dashes over to take the bag from her. It's not even heavy, but whatever. Guess carrying two pounds' worth of a change of underwear will spike her blood pressure into the thousands. At least that's what everyone else in this damn apartment believes._

 _Bob and Linda are waiting in the idling car outside; Louise is all but shoved into the passenger seat while Rudy takes his place in the backseat next to her mother. She sighs and leans against the window. In the distance, she thinks she hears Linda ask how she's doing, and she only grunts in reply. She had her first contraction maybe four hours ago, and immediately the three of them started freaking out. They don't even hurt— they just feel like some intense pressure on her lower back for a minute or so, then they go away. But once they were close enough together, and her water had broken all over the living room floor, Linda insisted they get going._

 _Anyway, Louise could really go for a hamburger right now._

 **oo0oo**

"Are you crazy?" Logan demands, incredulity drawn on his face in the form of deep lines on his forehead.

"Well, you're the one who tried to pickpocket me, sooo… you tell me," Louise says. She lifts herself up and jumps down from the car roof.

"Four Ears, I really… I don't think this is necessary." She detects a hint of desperation in his tone, and it piques her interest. She turns to face him as he also hops down.

She shrugs, playing innocent to his emotions. "It wouldn't hurt just getting it checked out."

He works his jaw for a moment, opening and closing his fists. "I… I don't want to."

"Why?"

"Because there's nothing wrong with me!" he practically yells.

She raises a startled brow. "Right."

"Maybe it's you."

"Maybe."

She opens the door and starts to slide into the passenger seat, but then there's an iron grip on her shoulder. Her head swivels up to discover terrified blue eyes.

"Maybe I'm scared to know if it's me."

 **oo0oo**

 _"Are you crazy?" Bob demands. They're sitting at a red light, set to go straight._

 _"The right turn lane is right there. All empty. Take the right," Louise insists._

 _"We are not going through the McDonald's drive-thru, Louise!"_

 _"Yes we are."_

 _"You're in labor!"_

 _She nods curtly. "That's right. I'm the one in labor, so only I know exactly how I feel. And you know how I feel? I feel like getting a goddamn Big Mac. Right turn lane, now."_

 _Bob glowers at her— he's only cooled slightly on this whole thing, mostly with coaxing from his wife— and Louise glowers right back._

 _"I'm not saying we'll go in," she says slowly as if spelling it out to a child. "Just the drive-thru. Just a Big Mac. I don't even need the fries."_

 _Her eyes dart to the backseat to seek out some backup, but Linda is chattering on the phone to Tina or Gene and Rudy is too busy hyperventilating to defend her case._

 _Then there's a long, loud honk from behind them. The light is green. While Bob is distracted, she leans over him and flips up the lever to turn on the right turn signal, and nudges the wheel to the right. Her father opens his mouth to scold her, then gives up and takes the dang right._

 _They pull into the drive-thru and Bob mutters grudgingly for a single Big Mac through the open window._

 _"And a large order of nuggets!" Linda calls._

 _Bob wrinkles his nose. "You hate McDonald's, Lin."_

 _"Not for me, you silly goose. They're for Gene!"_

 _"They'll be cold by the time he gets— oh, whatever," Bob says before adding it to the order._

 _"And a caramel macchiato for Tina!"_

 _Bob groans._

 **oo0oo**

Louise bites down on her lip hard enough for it to burst. She hopes it does.

"You're so stubborn, it's fucking annoying," she tells him.

"So are you," Logan answers.

"You're not wrong there," she admits. "But you have no right to be stubborn about this."

 **oo0oo**

 _Louise has already inhaled the Big Mac by the time they get to the hospital. She walks easily through the December chill and through the sliding doors. They're greeted by a bored looking receptionist who is wearing a "fuck you, it's one in the morning" expression at seven in the evening. The scrappy Christmas tinsel that lines the front desk only makes the scene sadder._

 _"Your brother and sister should be here soon," Linda says with a too-sweet smile to her daughter. Then she leans into Bob's ear and growls loud enough for her to hear, "If those little bastards aren't here soon I'll disown 'em." An angry crinkle of the McDonald's bag in her hands follows._

 _They get Louise situated in a temporary room, and the doctor on the floor informs them she'll be moved to the delivery room closer to the time— basically "Why the hell did you come so early?" in kinder words._

 _Louise yanks off the baggy hoodie she's been living in for the past month and reluctantly puts on one of the ugly hospital gowns that barely covers her ass. She lays back in the bed and turns on the TV, surfing through channels._

 _Rudy paces at the foot of her bed and glances up every once in a while. When his eyes land on the gory chainsaw killer movie she's watching, his skin goes one shade paler._

 _"Louise, please. Something less violent, just for once," Bob mutters, rubbing the back of his neck as he sits in one of the chairs against the wall. "You're gonna make Rudy faint."_

 _"Sorry, who's the one in labor and suffering again?" Louise pauses a second, then jabs a thumb against her chest. "Oh, right, that's me. Looks like Chainsaw Killer 3 is here to stay. Darn." She nods to Rudy. "Hey, Rudes, that energy of yours can be put to good use— how 'bout you grab me a pack of peanut butter M &Ms from the vending machine? Burn off some anxiety."_

 _"B- but the doctor said only ice chips at this point," Rudy pants— first thing he's said since they got here._

 _"The doctor can shove those ice chips up his ass," Louise retorts. "M &Ms, pronto."_

 **oo0oo**

"I kissed a girl," she says.

"And you liked it?"

For a second, she almost misses the reference. Then she grits her teeth and hits him lightly on the arm. "Logan, I'm… I'm serious."

Frown lines are again carved into his forehead. "What? When?"

"Back in Montana, at that weird rest stop place… this girl came up to me, a- and she just… swept me off my feet. Not literally, but…" Louise lets herself trail off, wondering when she became such a rambler like her sister.

"Wow," Logan murmurs. He studies her for a several long moments until she begins to squirm under his heated scrutiny.

"Did you like it?" he asks. Her phone rings.

 **oo0oo**

 _"Are you excited?" Tina asks her._

 _"What? No!" Louise scoffs. "I don't… I don't care about this kid at all. I'm just ready to have my body back."_

 _Her sister rests her elbows on the side of Louise's bed, leaning closer to study her. Tina's subject starts to squirm, so she leans away again. "You're lying," the older Belcher says automatically._

 _"So what if I am?" Louise grumbles. "I'm delirious."_

 **oo0oo**

"Oh, that's great," Louise sighs into the phone. She hangs up, pockets it, and returns her attention to Logan.

"What happened?"

"My sister popped out her kid. Momzilla just sent a picture, it looks like a wrinkled sack of potatoes." Louise leans back against her chair and pulls her knees up so she can prop her chin on them. "Jayson Robert," she recites the name of her newborn nephew, but shadows dapple her words.

Logan scratches his stubble. "Nice name."

 **oo0oo**

 _Gene munches through his McNuggets loudly, crumbs tumbling down his chin and smears of sauce at both corners of his lips. All these years, and he still has yet to cease eating like a starving wild animal._

 _"Those smell terrible, please get them out of here," Louise complains, pushing him away. "Go get Mom, would you?"_

 _"'Kay," her brother mutters, standing and doing as told. "Don't die!" he calls over his shoulder as the door shuts behind him. Louise isn't sure if she can heed those instructions._

 **oo0oo**

"You've kept your secrets, and I've kept mine," Louise tells him.

Logan glances down and absently strokes the fine blond hairs on his arms. She can't even remember what city they're in.

"Maybe it's… time to stop," she suggests. His eyes have never flown up to meet hers so quickly; and his lips have never been so slow to join hers.

 **oo0oo**

 _"Oh, honey, you're so courageous," Linda gushes, leaning into Louise's sweaty personal space bubble with her slender fingers stroking her daughter's frizzed hair._

 _"This fucking hurts," Louise says. Halfway through, her words inadvertently shift into a high-pitched whine._

 _"It'll be over soon," her mother says._

 _Her chest heaves and she swings her head back and forth wildly over the pillow. When did the room get so hot? She needs some goddamn ice chips. "You said this would be easy."_

 _"Well, it's not the same for everyone," Linda admits. "Each time was different for me; with Tina I was sad and crying, with Gene I was giddy and laughing like a maniac, and with you I was angry and yelling at everyone in the room!" She pauses for a second as if to think, then chuckles. "I will say, those were good predictors of how you kids turned out!"_

 **oo0oo**

They separate with a mournful moan, and she can't tell who the moan comes from. The sound fills her and vibrates in her throat, and her heart twists.

"I wanted this," she murmurs. "For a while, I really did. For years I did. But… there's something off."

"Louise—"

She looks at him head-on, hoping all traces of softness have melted away. "I wanna go home, Logan." She hates how weak her words are, how heavily they hang in the air between them, how his name comes off her tongue shrouded in darkness.

"Just take me back to Jersey," she says. "Don't make this difficult."

 **oo0oo**

 _"I want the goddamn epidural," Louise cries through gritted teeth. She writhes on the bed, strands of hair clinging to her forehead and perspiration coating what feels like her entire body._

 _"They said it's too late for that," Bob says. "You waited too long. I'm sorry. You're gonna have to tough it out."_

 _She blindly grabs a fistful of her father's shirt. "No! I want the drugs! I'll take anything, th- th- they've gotta have a few drops of morphine somewhere in this place. C'mon, Dad, you can hook a girl up, can't you? Please just ask, please."_

 _Bob stands up and starts to turn away. "I, ah… I'm gonna go get Rudy. He's the one who should be here with you."_

 _"No!" The objection tears up her throat so forcefully, even she is jarred for a second. She scrabbles to grab onto even one stitch of her dad's ratty old t-shirt. "Please stay here," she whimpers._

 _"I, uh, I don't think…"_

 _She manages to throw a pair of puppy eyes at him, and he's convinced. He collapses into the chair beside her bed and lets her small hand crush his into a broken pile of bones._

 **oo0oo**

Logan leaves a wrinkled five spot as the tip, and they walk out of the restaurant. Louise's eyes linger on the dollar bill as they leave, however. She wonders where that bill started, and where it's ended up. She thinks of all the places it must have been.

She thinks of where she started, where she so badly wanted to escape from, and how now, she's returning to her roots. She's stained with the culture and influence of countless cities, just like that five-dollar bill with its little rips, tears, and stains.

She wonders if her family will even recognize her with all the little rips and tears and marks.

 **oo0oo**

 _"Get out of here!" she shrieks, wrenching her sweaty paw free from his hand and pushing him half-heartedly with one arm. "Leave! I don't want you, I don't—"_

 _"You just asked me to stay!" Bob exclaims, burying a set of fingernails in his balding scalp. "Oh my god, Louise. Do you want me to go or not?"_

 _With all the chaos and yelling in the room, she almost forgets how much she's been progressing. The doctor's head has been hidden between her legs for a while now, though unfortunately he's not doing anything there that feels particularly good._

 _"It's time, everyone!" The doctor announces, raising his head and swiveling it toward Bob. "Are you the father, sir?"_

 _Louise's stomach turns, and Bob, humbled, chuckles. "Oh, me? N- no, I mean… look at me! I'm old enough to be her father, I—"_

 _"You are my father, you dingbat!" Louise interrupts._

 _But right before her very eyes, nurses shove gloves and a sneeze guard at Bob and he throws them on. He shoots a helplessly thrilled look toward his daughter, who groans and slams her head back against the pillow._

 _"Why me?" she whispers to herself. "Why me, why me, why me?"_

 **oo0oo**

They drive in the car, cloaked in silence and the air weighted with tension. Louise picks at a scab on her left elbow and wonders if it would be in poor taste to put the radio on.

A sign welcoming them to New Jersey passes by in a blur of green. She blinks several times as the image of it fades in her mind. It's been so long since she set foot in the territory of her origins. She feels like a lone wolf trying to rejoin her former pack. Will they even accept her?

 **oo0oo**

 _When the doctor delivers the baby, she expects to be screaming and banging her fists against any nearby surface. But with the dwindling strength she has left, the best she can do is release a long string of swear words at a decent volume and grasp the sheets in her tacky palms._

 _She looks up just in time to see her father cutting the umbilical cord. "Get the hell out of here!" Louise says, miraculously finding the lungpower to scream at him. Bob tears off his sneeze guard, cheeks all flushed, and triumphantly exits the room._

* * *

 **thanks so much for the love!**


	18. a new distance

Ocean Avenue hasn't changed much, Louise realizes as they coast freely through the empty streets. It's freezing cold, but not a white holiday this year. What's the point of having cold if you don't even get the snow to go with it?

Logan's foot lets up on the gas pedal and begins to press down on the brake. He gives the steering wheel a gentle, sweeping twist to the right, and then they're parked in front of Bob's Burgers.

Louise wastes no time getting out of the car, but once her feet are planted on the curb she finds herself frozen. She shoulders her bag of measly belongings further up her shoulder, scans over the familiar green building of her childhood, and sighs.

She spins back around— not to open the car door again and climb back inside and smother him with kisses, of course not— but the curb is empty. Her head jerks up just in time to see the sleek black sedan turn at the end of the road, puttering by Wonder Wharf and disappearing with a final, resolute puff of exhaust.

 **oo0oo**

 _Finally, Rudy is the one next to her. He's star struck, and by a baby, no less._

 _He has one hand on Louise, index finger and thumb teasing a curl of her hair; his other hand is lightly resting on their daughter, his fingers gliding over her flawless skin. He touches her as if a single tap could make her shatter like glass._

 _"I didn't think she'd be this ugly," Louise notes, watching the newborn's wrinkled sleeping face with an equally wrinkled nose. "I mean, she came out of me, after all."_

 _"She's ugly," Rudy agrees. "But she's ours." His head heavy on her shoulder is a kind of silent thank you._

 **oo0oo**

Louise starts fishing through her duffel for her old key to the apartment, until she recalls a vague memory of tossing it over a bridge into the Columbia River. How wise of her.

She could always put her lock-picking skills to use here, but she figures it's worth checking if someone is actually home first.

She squares her shoulders, smooths her hair, and pulls her bunny ears a little lower on her forehead. Then, inhaling, she places a set of three shaky knocks on the old wood.

 **oo0oo**

 _Something has changed in her father today, Louise realizes. The stony-faced man who raised three children with every last annoyed groan and "oh… my god" he had has transformed into the most tender person. He holds his granddaughter with this great wonder shining in his dark eyes, and a smile that is unlikely to be erased soon._

 _The nurse had tried to insist on only one visitor at a time, but of course the Belchers aren't a one-visitor-only kind of family. Her bed is surrounded by her dark-haired, big-brown-eyed family and an exhausted Rudy who couldn't be any more out of place._

 _And for the first time, Louise lets relaxation wash over her. She rests her sore neck on the pillow and waits for the ice over her heart to refreeze._

 **oo0oo**

The knock attracts the attention of not just two, but four stomping feet down the stairs. Louise braces herself, stepping back a couple inches on the cracked sidewalk.

The door swings open with a flourish. Standing before her are her mother and sister, both quite similar to the mother and sister Louise left behind some years ago.

"Oh. I thought you said this would be the UPS package for—" Tina states bluntly, but Linda cuts her off with a screech. She launches herself into her younger daughter's arms. Louise's shoulder is soaked within seconds.

 **oo0oo**

 _"You gotta name her soon, honey," Linda comments, crossing one leg over the other. "This kid can't spend her whole life being called 'I don't know' or 'We'll decide later.'"_

 _"We could name her after my paternal grandmother," Rudy suggests. "It's—"_

 _"Nope. I don't even wanna hear it, I know it'll be terrible." Louise narrows her eyes in thought. A million names dash through her mind, showcasing a brilliant array of personalities yet to established and memories yet to be made. Something stirs in her stomach; she thinks back to one of the baby name books that had been shoved into her hands at one point in the last several months. And she has it._

 _"If this poor kid is gonna be saddled with the last name Steiblitz," she announces. "She'll need to have a kickass name. I vote Rocky."_

 **oo0oo**

"My baby! My baby is back! Oh my god, Bobby!" Linda yells up the steps, since apparently no one is capable of going up into the apartment. Louise begins to shiver from the December chill, and Tina has the courtesy to reach out and close the door to welcome her inside.

She's still enveloped in her mom's arms, but when a few more people come racing downstairs to the landing, Linda lets her go.

"Louise!" Bob half-yells, half-mumbles, eyes huge with surprise. She's never heard someone's voice fluctuate so much over one word.

"Oh, look at her, Bobby," Linda sniffles, squeezing Louise's upper arms and then letting her fingers graze through her daughter's hair. "You've grown out your hair. And you still have your ears! Still so gorgeous." She pulls her in for another choking embrace before Louise is released to the scrutiny of everyone else.

"Well," Bob hums, lifting interested eyebrows. "Where's your almost-hubby?"

 **oo0oo**

 _"No way is she gonna be Rocky," Linda says, quickly slipping into her judgmental mother tone. "Is she gonna be a geologist? 'Rock' shouldn't be anywhere in her name."_

 _Louise squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a breath. "Mom, who's kid is this? Yours or mine?" She pauses, then answers for her, "Mine, damn it!"_

 _"… and, uh, mine," Rudy adds quietly._

 _Louise lets herself mull over an imaginary list of names for a while, shaking her head. "I want her to have an R name. I like R names." She ignores the affectionate, dimpled smirk Rudy sends in her direction._

 _"Ruby?" Linda suggests._

 _"If she can't be a rock, she can't be a gemstone," Louise counters._

 _Tina purses her lips, magnified brown eyes rolling to the ceiling as she thinks. "Rachel?"_

 _"Nah, reminds me of that bitch Rachel who gave Rudy a wedgie in fifth grade." Louise tilts her head to grin broadly at him. "Only I have the privilege of doing that."_

 _"Great," he sighs._

 _Gene perks up. "Ooh, I have one! How 'bout Rory? She looks like a little lion that, like, roars, right?" He leans forward to frame his fingers around the baby's face. "I can have a lion costume finished in time for her first Halloween."_

 _"Woah, woah, let's slow down," Louise says. "You're getting warmer, but that's still not it." Her eyes shift over to Bob. "Dad? Any contributions, or you just gonna keep staring creepily at her?"_

 _Bob has maybe been blinking once a minute. He mumbles something, but nobody can hear it. He continues cradling the newborn, gazing down at her in a trance._

 _"'Kay, creepy staring it is," Louise sighs. She thinks her father might love this kid more than she does._

 **oo0oo**

Gene's in Vegas right now, she's told. Everyone else in the apartment wastes no time filling her in on all their own news. Louise's brain absorbs some of their information, but she skims over most of their blabbing to focus on physical changes.

Bob has a sprinkling of white in his mustache now, like he dusted flour over it. The bald spot on his head has become more pronounced, but it hasn't eaten away at all of his hair yet. He's perched nervously on the couch, studying her with watchful eyes.

And Linda— well, Louise wishes she could ignore how much her mother's hair has grayed. She didn't notice it at first, among all the chaos of her initial arrival. But now that she's settled with a mug of hot cocoa shoved in her hands, she is able to notice the specks at Linda's temples, like grains of salt and pepper. The bags under her eyes have gotten more highlighted over the years, and they look so out of place on what should still be a youthful, exuberant face.

Tina and Zeke are amusing together, Louise has to admit to herself. She's watching the mini marshmallows bob around in her drink as the whole story of how they reconnected is shared— clearly this tale has been told multiple times recently, if the expression on Bob's face says anything. Tina moved back from New York to help with the restaurant. Zeke moved back to town from devil-knows-where and, when Tina posted a help wanted sign in the window, he was the first guy to show up. For a while he worked as a cook at Bob's Burgers, but eventually scraped together enough cash to establish a tiny place of his own along the boardwalk. Now the two of them are searching for an apartment of their own while still currently mooching off of Bob and Linda's hospitality (that's in Louise's words of course), setting up camp in Gene's old room.

The pair are on the couch— a new one, Louise is shocked to notice, but very similar to the old one— with his arm behind her shoulders and her holding their little goblin of a son. Tina chopped off quite a bit of her hair since Louise last saw her. Now the stringy black strands are pulled back into a micro-ponytail. Zeke's scraggly beard, meanwhile, is pathetic to look at and totally put to shame by his father-in-law's formidable upper lip decoration.

Louise's eyes fall idly on her nephew, Jayson. She can't say she hasn't thought about meeting the kid, but her interest in him is so vague, she's already forgotten his middle name and birthday. Actually, she'd be hard-pressed to recall Zeke's last name.

She would love to forget the newfound whiteness in her father's 'stache, and the salt and pepper flecks at her mother's temples, and the foreign look in Tina's eyes.

 **oo0oo**

 _Rudy's fingers are still messing with wisps of Louise's hair, and she can't say she hates the feeling. She just doesn't understand how he can lean his head on her shoulder. Surely she smells like the dumpster in the alley behind the restaurant by now._

 _"I dunno," he mumbles suddenly, and everyone in the small room glances up. "I remember thinking of names in the first few weeks after I found out Lou was pregnant. I remember thinking, what name could possibly be good enough for our kid? Our very own kid? And that terrified me even more, because a name— well, that isn't just any random word. It's what I'll call my kid for always, what I'll create all these crazy nicknames from, what I'll think of just as fondly as I think of Louise's name. But the very first name I thought of… well, it somehow fits her, I think. Now that I'm looking at her and all."_

 _Bob still hasn't relinquished his hold on the baby, but absentmindedly he angles her more in her parents' direction. Rudy chuckles, and Louise wonders how many kisses it would take for those dimples to stay there forever._

 _"I think she looks like a Roxanne."_

 _A bubble of warmth bursts inside Louise's gut. She sniffs and only lets one tiny corner of her mouth turn upward. "That's… actually not such a bad idea, Rudes." She studies their slumbering daughter's face, from the rosiness of her cheeks to the sweeping, black curtains of lashes covering her closed eyelids. "That plus the terrible grandmother name."_

 _"Roxanne Gwendolyn."_

 _"Yikes." Louise snorts. "You're in for a rough one, Roxy."_

 **oo0oo**

"I've, uh, never held… one before," Louise remarks hesitantly. Tina had offered very out of nowhere to let her sister hold Jayson, and immediately panic had bloomed in the younger Belcher's chest.

"It's fine," Tina says, motioning for Louise to take a seat next to her on the couch. "Just support his head with one arm and use your other to cradle his body and legs."

"Yeah, don't worry 'bout nothin', lil' B. He doesn't bite. Usually," Zeke adds.

Louise hopes they don't notice her gulp. She seats herself next to her sister and casts her eyes down to her nephew. He's snoozing right now, eyelids fluttering in front of unknown dreams. Gradually Tina transfers him from her arms to Louise's.

As she takes him, she's jarred by the immense weight. He's like a little bowling ball. She grunts and settles him in her lap. The movement is enough to rouse him. His eyes pop open— they're enormous and dark blue, unlike either of his parents'. He trains his vision on his aunt, blinking slowly as if trying to focus on the one tangible object before him. He gurgles and flexes his chubby fingers boredly. Louise is almost amazed by the clear lack of intelligence of the creature in her lap. If she waved a flaming match in the kid's face, he wouldn't even notice it.

"Are all babies this…" she begins, and her family is quick to hop in with guesses.

"Magical?" Tina says.

"Gorgeous?" Linda offers.

"Smelly?" Zeke chuckles.

Louise lifts her head, and finds Bob still gazing at her. He hides a proud smirk behind his fingers.

"No," she says after a moment. "Dumb."

Tina groans, Zeke laughs, and Linda shoves a camera in Louise's face. The flash dazzles her and irritates Jayson. He starts to fuss in her arms, and with a wince she all but tosses him back to his mother.

"Aw, oh my god. It's Auntie Louise! This photo is definitely getting framed," Linda gushes over her grandson's wailing.

 **oo0oo**

 _It's almost seven in the morning, or maybe a bit past it. The shades are drawn over the windows in the hospital room, but Louise can still see the sunlight fighting to shine through every gap. The natural light that does make it in creates a perfect, solid golden ray that shoots across the room, warming her feet through the blanket, and ending at Bob asleep in his chair with Roxy also conked out in his arms. Tina had left around midnight, and Gene must have taken his exit while Louise was asleep. Linda is on the uncomfortable-looking sofa, her cheek flat against her shoulder as she snores softly. Rudy is the only other one awake, his eyes looking transparent in the sun's glare as he blinks drowsily up at her._

 _"G'morning," he whispers. He taps his nose against hers and sits up, letting out a long groan as he stretches._

 _"I think that kid is gonna grow up calling my dad 'Mommy,'" she replies, crossing her arms over her chest. She's about ready to chew the IV out of her arm, but for once she's too tired to make a scene. She has a distinct feeling she'll be too tired to do a lot of her favorite things for a while yet._

 _"I'll wake him," Rudy sighs. He leans forward and gently shakes Bob's shoulder. He grunts and sits up, feet slipping for a few scary seconds on the white linoleum. He grins stiffly at Rudy's mumbled "good morning" and combs some fingers through his sharp stubble._

 _Louise nods at him. "Hello, dear father. Thanks for joining us. Y'know, I'm absolutely starved. How 'bout you grab us something?"_

 _Bob's eyes land on Roxy again, and a shaky smile slices through his grumpy morning frown. "U- uh, sure. I can, uh, go see what they have down in the cafeteria."_

 _"No," Louise laughs. "Nuh-uh. Dad, come on. Cafeteria food? For me? I just brought life into this world, life which you have not let go of for many hours. I want you to get in the car and find a Wendy's. I want a Baconator. And if they say they don't have them in the morning, tell them what I've told you and make sure I get that damn Baconator. Capiche?"_

 _Bob blinks, nods, and gets up. He looks like he is finally about to hand over the baby to her, but then he holds her up to his face. Roxy wakes with a tiny gurgle._

 _"What do you think, Rox? Wanna go to Wendy's with me?" he asks, before switching over to the dreaded falsetto voice. "Oh, I'd love to, Grampa! You can show me everyth—"_

 _Louise cuts him off there. "You're not taking her anywhere, she was born like three minutes ago." She holds out her hands and wiggles her fingers. "Let's go, gramps."_

 _Bob's eyebrows scrunch together like strips of Velcro, but he hands over the newborn and digs the car keys out from the pocket of his sweatpants. "Okay. A baconator and what else?"_

 _"Surprise us."_

 _Then he's gone, and Louise relaxes on her pillow. About damn time. Secretly, she doesn't object at all to Bob holding her kid all that time— it's not like she knows any better about how to hold this puny thing._

 _"I've never seen your dad so… enthused," Rudy comments honestly._

 _"I know. It's freaking me out. He usually gets triggered whenever I bring up Wendy's. He hates how their burgers are square-shaped because 'it's unnatural,' as if circular burgers aren't manmade too. I guess now they could be triangle-shaped and he wouldn't give a crap."_

 _Louise looks down at Roxy. Her scrunched-up face is, well… scrunchy. Her fat little fingers grasp the hem of her pink blanket with a particular fussiness that Louise isn't sure she likes._

 _Oh jeez, what the hell is wrong with her? How can she not like her own child? Okay, it's not that she doesn't like her, it's just that… the connection hasn't happened yet. Louise thought it would happen when the kid was put back in her arms, but there's still nothing. She only feels the emptiness inside her where Roxy used to be, and the dull ache in the entire lower half of her body from the necessary chaos that brought her out and into her arms. Where's the loving embrace, the tear-filled smile, the voice thick with emotion? Everything Louise says sounds flat and feisty, like her normal tone. She feels like little has changed, not counting this enormous new responsibility now placed on her and Rudy's shoulders. This responsibility who, might she add, refused to latch on and breastfeed (secretly Louise was glad, she didn't want to do that anyway), who hasn't looked up at her once, and who even seems to be leaning slightly away from her._

 _"Take her," Louise says abruptly, lifting her tired arms and offering the bundle to Rudy._

 _"Wha—? Um, okay," he says, accepting the baby and snuggling her to his chest._

 _All Louise wanted was for things to be normal, but now it feels like things are anything but. What's wrong with her?_

* * *

 **thanks for reading!**


	19. breathless

She lays in bed with the covers bunched up at her feet and her fingers twisting wrinkles into the thin sheets. Her eyes follow the shadows dancing on the ceiling, which are locked in a duel with the headlights of passing cars outside. The night swallows most of the room around her, save for some yellowish patches that highlight dusty shelves and posters lining the wall to her left.

Tina's room is cold. Louise never really noticed that before. She'd slept in here a few times, of course, like that time when she was five and had a nightmare and Bob was out of town and she was absolutely _not_ about to go crying to her mother so she went crying to her big sister instead. That only happened once, though. Once, and again when she was eight.

Louise now, also, sees the appeal of her windowless closet of a bedroom. At least there were never creepy shapes sliding stealthily across the ceiling when she would try to fall asleep years ago. How did Gene ever sleep with two stupid windows in his room?

At last she sits up, smacking her dry mouth and blinking the crust out of her sandpaper eyes. She shuffles over the gross old carpet to the window and sighs. The pathetic string of holiday lights in the street below are way too bright. How did Tina and Gene ever sleep? What a relief she had been the unnecessary third child; the one her parents had genuinely panicked over when they saw the little plus sign on the test and the one given the hallway closet to sleep in.

She blinks again, and her mind flashes to tufty blond strands like corn silk, scrunched eyebrows, only one nostril flared because the other nostril couldn't. Police lights flashing in his hair, one cheek red and forehead blue.

Somehow her feet lead her back to her former room. It's stacked high with boxes of useless junk belonging to each Belcher. Her childhood is in front of her, concealed behind layers of cardboard, sloppy art projects, and moth-eaten first-day-of-school outfits insisted on being kept.

Louise wedges herself into the room, inching along the lilac walls until she stumbles upon a breathable space in the center of the mess. Her arms strain to reach a box flap on top of the nearest stack. She curses her height. Fingers graze the edge, then get a firm hold. Cautiously, she coaxes the heavy container down to her.

The first object her hand lands on is a terrible painting of what is supposedly the moon. She flips over the crinkled paper and sees " _Gene, second grade_ " scribbled on the back. Her mind tiptoes away so discreetly again, she almost can't keep up with it.

One time they were reclined in their seats in the car, looking at the moon while drifting off. His eyes were squinted and face twisted as he turned to her and mumbled, _"Can you turn the moon down…? It's too bright."_

A whisper of a laugh had touched her lips. _"I can't turn down the moon, dumbass. It's not a lamp, it's the moon."_

She nibbles on her lip and tosses her brother's disaster of a painting over her shoulder. She paws through the box some more, then realizes the common theme is Gene. She grabs another box and starts looking through it. Nope, all Tina stuff. Couldn't Linda have at least labeled all this shit she's hoarded?

The fourth box, finally, is the correct one. All of her old things are in here. Toys. Anime and horror DVDs. An ancient iPod. And all the way at the bottom, her beloved Kuchi Kopi nightlight.

Boxers dotted with Kuchi Kopis, the sheer fabric hugging his lean thighs, the line of hair trailing up his relatively sculpted torso, the plump lips waiting for hers.

She's panting. No, her chest is heaving. Those are two different things. She twists away, hiding the Kuchi Kopi under other stuff. Her eyes fall back on something peculiar in Gene's box.

She fastens her fingers on the photo. The paper is so glossy his face is almost blotted out, but she can clearly see her nine-year-old self frozen in a verbal battle with a teenage dork in brown slacks. Her stomach drops as she turns the old picture over.

Written in Gene's lopsided penmanship: " _Louise and Logan: they hate each other now but they'll DEFINITELY reconnect in their thirties and get married! And I'll be the best bridesmaid!_"

She's gonna be sick. Her hand darts up to cover her mouth, and the photograph flutters to the floor.

 **oo0oo**

 _The night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a soul is asleep, especially not Louise._

 _The piercing cries stab her eardrums like scythes hooking into her ears and dragging her away from the warm embrace of her bed. She flops onto her back with an exasperated sigh. "Will you get her, Rude?"_

 _"I got her the last three turns, and she's still crying," he mumbles, face-down in his pillow. "She wants you."_

 _Louise crosses her arms and curls her toes, trying to think of any more ideas to get her out of this. But her supply of excuses is fresh out, the river of manipulative words now bone-dry. She starts to sit up and meets Rudy's eyes in the dark bedroom._

 _"You're her mother, Lou. At least try."_

 _The gray skies in his gaze have never been more overcast. She groans and slides off the bed, trudging the eight steps to the old crib at the other end of the room._

 _Louise takes the squirming kid in her arms and bites her lip. "Hey," she whispers after a second of hesitation. "What's all the bitching for? Rudes fed and changed you and all that other stuff. Do you just wanna torture me?"_

 _Roxy's crying trickles to a low whimper, and she blinks her enormous eyes at Louise._

 _"I still feel like the lower half of my body was hit by a truck, so… thanks for that," Louise goes on. Gently, she tries to rock the baby back and forth. But no matter how much she paces the room and murmurs soothingly, her daughter's enormous eyes refuse to close. Roxy watches her mom curiously as if she is the most interesting thing in the world— and honestly, Louise can't help but feel a little smug about that._

 _"What do you want from me, hm? You can't sleep in the big bed with us, I'll roll over and crush you to death or something. Or Rudes would breathe his wheezy snores right in your face. Trust me, I've been there. It's not a good time."_

 _Still Roxy casts a silent, observant stare up at her mother. Then out of nowhere, she scrunches up her face until her plump cheeks are tomatoes. The crying restarts._

 _"Dammit," Louise hisses._

 _"Louise!" Bob yells from her parents' bedroom._

 _"Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it!" she snaps. Louise really tries with the kid, too. She makes up a bottle for her, only to be refused. She disdainfully burps her, but it's futile. She checks her diaper, and it's dry as the fucking Sahara._

 _"Jesus," Louise grumbles ten minutes later. "Isn't your throat raw by now, kid?" She prepares to place Roxy back in the crib just as the baby draws in another lungful of air to refuel her scream-fest._

 _Then there's a heavy hand on her shoulder, and she turns around to see Rudy, who's so exhausted he's swaying on his feet like he's drunk. He smirks and she eagerly transfers Roxy from her arms to his._

 _"Sorry," she says. "I don't know why she hates me."_

 _Rudy shakes his head slowly, and Louise realizes he's panting._

 _"Is it the asthma?" she yawns. "Should I get your inhaler?"_

 _"No, it's not the asthma, it's you," he answers. At her puzzled look, he chuckles. "You still take my breath away, Louise. You're amazing." He cuddles Roxy close to his chest as he presses his lips over his wife's for a few too short seconds._

 _"But she's still crying," Louise points out. "I didn't even do anything remarkable."_

 _"You tried," Rudy says. "And that's what matters." With that, he turns his back to her to tend to the wriggling pink goblin. Louise brushes her frizzed hair back from her face and tries not to giggle like an idiot._

* * *

 **Hey ya'll, I love reading your feedback! I appreciate every review.**


	20. a cliche moment

It's morning before she knows it. Louise wakes up on the thin carpet of her old room, a fort of boxes surrounding her. She coughs, and watches dislodged dust glitter in the harsh light coming from the hallway.

She lifts herself up, and a stack of yellowed notebook paper slides off her chest. She picks up the top piece to reexamine an old story in her blocky fourth-grade handwriting. She gives the first couple lines a once-over and finds it's some stupid medieval tale about her Aunt Gayle and a cat army. Man, the weird shit her nine-year-old mind could draw out of thin air…

Louise pushes herself to her feet, joints creaking in protest. Just as she came in last night, she dives through the gap in the fence of boxes and edges along the wall until she falls back into the early-morning-lit hallway.

The door to Gene's old room— currently Tina and Zeke's abode, likely chosen because it is the largest bedroom besides the Belcher patriarchs'— is still closed and faint snoring can be heard on the other side. The door to Tina's old room had been left ajar last night by Louise, but clearly no one had thought to check on her because it is untouched. She considers going back in and catching a few more Z's, then decides against it.

Her aching feet point her path to the bathroom next. She does her business and takes observation of her terrible appearance in the mirror as she washes her hands. She shuts off the squeaky faucet and brings her dripping fingers up to her cheeks, pulling at the thin purplish skin under her muddy green eyes. Those seem to be the only thing unchanged about her. The eye bags, the longer, rattier hair, the paler complexion— those are all too new and too unwelcome. She can't remember when she started giving a shit about how she looks, and now more than ever she wishes she didn't.

She removes her hands from her face. The water droplets left behind resemble tears that her eyes are thoroughly dried of. She's too tired to shed tears anyway.

Then something clicks in Louise. She tears open the cabinet and nudges aside half-empty aspirin bottles and forgotten floss holders, but doesn't find what she's looking for. Jeez, even the stupid bathroom cabinet has changed.

She moves to the drawers and space under the sink. Swift fingers push away a hairdryer, an almost-used-up tube of toothpaste, an old container of foundation cracked into a thousand pieces. Then, at last, her fingers close on the dirty handle of a pair of grooming scissors.

With a shaking hand, she holds up the rusty instrument and swallows. Even the scissors are trembling, her fear transferring to them. She steadies her hand, sweeps her bundle of thick dark hair over one shoulder, and swallows again.

"Here's your cliché moment, Louise," she murmurs to herself. "You better fucking enjoy it."

She opens the scissors, which creak just like her knees, and position the rust-lined blades on either side of the waterfall of black waves tumbling past her left shoulder. She squeezes her eyes shut at the same time the scissors close.

 **oo0oo**

 _It's morning before she knows it. She rouses gradually, opening her eyes to find herself on the floor, one leg suspended by the bedsheet._

 _"God damn it to hell," Louise mutters, dragging herself forward until her leg is freed. She sits up and finds Rudy snuggled in bed, sleeping soundly as a bear in hibernation. She stretches out a foot and gives him a little kick in the back to send a needless message. All that warrants from him is a grunt, and she sighs._

 _Against her better judgment, she tiptoes over to Roxy's crib and finds the infant wide awake but silent. Her enormous baby blues flit over a little to the left to land on her mother. Louise gulps. What is it with this kid and staring?_

 _"You gonna start crying again?" she whispers cautiously, drumming her fingers on the crib's edge. "'Cause if you do, Mommy's gonna have an aneurysm."_

 _Suddenly she starts. She just said the M-word. Mommy. In regards to herself. Louise chews on her lip and glances back down at Roxy. "I swear you've brainwashed me already, kid."_

 _She watches her daughter for a few more minutes, but Roxy doesn't fuss or seem uncomfortable, so Louise lets her be. She's not about to mix up another stupid bottle of formula, throw it in the microwave, and bring the leaking thing all the way here only to be refused again. And diaper changing is an activity reserved for the most damned souls in hell; Louise does not plan to be part of the crowd condemned to that stench for all eternity. She'll be elsewhere, shoveling smoldering coals into pits of lava._

 _It's by far the quietest Christmas morning in ages for the Belcher household. Tina is supposed to stop by later, and Gene couldn't get off work until next week, so it's still gonna be quiet for a while yet. It's still five people here, Louise realizes— just a different group of five._

 _She walks down the hallway, shutting the door to her room and barely sparing a glance for her sibling's former lairs: doors wide open, rooms drafty, beds made up and cold._

 _In the bathroom she does her business and looks at herself briefly in the mirror as she washes and dries her hands. Her eyes are still that same muddy green, but they're bloodshot from lack of restful sleep. Her hair is wavier than usual today, she notices. She gathers up the dark waves and tames them into a loose ponytail, then exits._

 _Louise trudges into the kitchen and finds Linda nursing a cup of morning joe. Even her sips are deathly silent, as if she fears any little noise will irritate the baby._

 _"Roxy's already awake, you're allowed to breathe," Louise says as she pours herself a cup of coffee, keeping it perfectly black and bitter. When she sits at the table, her mother is gaping at her. Yeesh, now she sees where Roxy gets the weird staring thing from. "What?" she grumbles._

 _"Have you fed her? Changed her? Held her? Anything?"_

 _"She's two days old, gimme a break. And she was fine just now. Just stared up at me blankly like a du— baby, y'know. She didn't seem to want anything."_

 _Linda tiredly tilts up her glasses to rub one eye, then replaces them. "Okay, honey."_

 _"Merry Christmas," Louise says dully._

 _"Merry Christmas," Linda replies, her gaze disappearing behind coffee steam._

 **oo0oo**

At first her mother doesn't say anything. Linda sips her coffee, scans the newspaper, then notices Louise. She stares blankly, eyes wide behind her already magnifying glasses. "Honey…" she murmurs at last. "What did you—"

"It's for the best," Louise cuts in snappishly. Her hair barely touches her shoulders. It's never been this short, and it's a freeing feeling.

"Louise…" Linda says. "Well, I mean… if it's what you want…. It does suit you."

"It's for the best," she repeats.

 **oo0oo**

 _Bob walks into the kitchen sporting sleep-tousled hair and a baby on his hip. When Louise sees the object on Roxy's head, she almost chokes on her bite of pancake._

 _"Seriously, Dad?" she explodes, scraping her chair back on the floor and rushing to snatch Roxy away from him._

 _He grins down at his granddaughter and chuckles awkwardly. "What? I noticed your old bunny ears fell behind the dresser when I went to get the Roxster. Look how cute they are on her!"_

 _The ears are big enough to completely cover the baby's eyes, and Louise takes off the hat with a groan. "No," she says firmly. "No way."_


	21. it's jess

Louise strolls into the restaurant a few afternoons later fresh from a septum piercing appointment. She's kept her hair exactly the way she cut it, jagged edges and all. She pulls it back into pitifully short pigtails as she sidles up to the counter.

"Oh, there you are," her mother says. She glances up, visibly startles when she notices the nose piercing, but wisely chooses not to comment on it. "You remember how to run the register?"

"Please, mother," Louise snorts as she slides behind the counter and pushes Linda aside. "I'm not an idiot."

She can feel her mom's eyes hot on her. "If you say so," Linda mumbles, just the slightest touch of resentment in her tone— then she's off bussing tables.

An hour passes, maybe two, and Louise does her job. She re-familiarizes herself with the ol' register. The same buttons still jam all the time, and there's still that spot that is always greasy no matter how much cleaner is sprayed on it. She swipes bills in and out of the drawer, yes, sir, I would _love_ to give you change for your hundred-dollar bill and of _course_ , ma'am, I can break your five dollars into pennies for some reason.

In fact, she barely looks up during all this time. Her nose itches, and she resists the urge to sneeze. Though maybe it would take sneezing blood all over these stupid people to get the place cleared out for once. She's not sure what her parents and Tina have been doing in her absence, but it sure as hell worked. The last time Louise saw the joint this packed was when they were a biker bar for a day when she was nine.

"Well, well, well."

She stiffens, her fist instantly crumpling a twenty into a sweaty wad. "You've gotta be freaking kidding me," she grunts.

Jessica's hair is a fiery, striking red. Louise gulps. "If it isn't Lou-fuckin'-ise Belcher, Huxley High's Class of 2020 badass," her old friend teases as she marches up to the counter. The bell on the door is even struck silent by her appearance— there had been no warning of her arrival.

Louise sniffs and shoves the customer's receipt at them. "What do you want?"

"Um, I think just a nickel in change—"

"Not you, buddy." Louise rests her elbows on the counter and scowls at the other young woman. "Why are you here, bed wetter?"

Jessica winces. "Ouch."

Louise shrugs. "Bet that raccoon's still gnawing on those pissy pajama pants of yours."

"Alright, alright. You're kinda pissy yourself, y'know." Jessica seats herself on a stool and drums the counter with swift hands. "Thought I'd stop by for a visit, that's why I'm here. I figured you would be long gone from here by now." She tilts her head, wisps of hair bouncing on her shoulder. Louise counts the freckles on her face. But the redness in her cheeks fades every second she's inside out of the cold, and Louise keeps losing count.

"Oh, well…" she says with a partial shrug. "I was out of town for a couple years."

"Yeah?" Jessica wiggles out of her coat. "Were you touring Europe with Barry Bush? Did you give him a big fat smooch on top of the Eiffel Tower?"

"Why do you care what I did?"

Jessica snorts. "Okay, fine, you don't have to tell me. But if you were curious about my whereabouts—"

"I wasn't."

"— I've been up in Maine with my girlfriend. Girlfriend, one word. As in, we're dating. But I came back to this glorious seaside resort town to visit family and catch up with friends. See, like how I'm catching up with you right now. Yay. So fun."

Louise crosses her arms. "If you're here to spite and mock somebody, please do it somewhere else. I'm not the person who's buttons you want to push today. Now are you getting a burger or not?"

"Sure, give me one of your finest." Jessica sticks out her tongue as she digs in her pocket, slapping a five on the counter. "What will that buy?"

"A small plate of fries."

She pouts her lower lip. "Not even cheese sauce with it?" Louise shakes her head, unamused, and the redhead sighs. "Well. What a rip off." Her hand scavenges a little more through her pocket. With a flourish she throws down another wrinkled five. "Wow, I'm broke."

A kink tickles the corner of Louise's mouth, unfortunately turning it upward. "Relatable," she says. Then she turns to the window and calls to Bob, "Get her a Burger of the Day, Pops."

 **oo0oo**

 _A few weeks after Christmas, Louise falls back into her usual routine. She works at the restaurant almost nonstop from dawn to dusk. Roxy is on her mind often, but not all the time. She just throws herself completely into her work, slaving over the grill and slapping so many buns on top of burgers that she loses count._

 _Bob walks up and taps her shoulder when she's scraping the grill surface to clear it of the lunch residue so it's fresh for the dinner rush. And just like with everything else, she throws herself entirely into scraping that grill, putting all her weight and elbow grease into removing a stubborn burnt piece._

 _"Louise, I can take it from here. Roxy needs you upstairs."_

 _Words bubble up inside her, but she doesn't bother with arguing. She sighs, drops the scraper instantly, and throws her apron back up on the hook by the kitchen door._

 _Back in the apartment, Linda is showering her granddaughter with attention in the living room. They're on the couch, the TV on but quieted and a particular sleepiness in the atmosphere._

 _"Well, doesn't seem like she needs me," Louise yawns._

 _"No, no, please take her, honey," her mother whispers, leaning forward gently. "She misses her mommy."_

 _The younger woman takes out her ponytail and collapses next to Linda on the couch. Roxy is transferred to her arms._

 _Every three days, it's Louise's turn to watch her daughter for the day. The other two days are Bob's and Linda's. When Rudy graduates this May, he'll be joining the pack. May. This May. He'll be graduated. He'll get a job. He won't even have to get a day to watch the baby because he'll be away from here all damn day._

 _"Well, don't just stare at her," Linda chuckles. "Talk to her. She loves it when you talk to her."_

 _"Um," Louise coughs. Her voice is hoarse from calling out orders and table numbers to her father all day. "Hey, kid. How's it going?"_

 _She makes eye contact, and Roxy blinks at her._

 _"I don't think she's very impressed with me," Louise says. "Why don't I put her down for a nap or something."_

 _Linda shrugs. "Okay. She could use it. She was just about to fall asleep with me before you came up."_

 _Louise trudges down the hall and places her daughter down in the old crib. Then she freezes, her muscles rigid like steel and heavy like lead. She takes a few steps backwards and her butt lands on her bed. Her eyes are flooded, the tears stinging with vexation. And, heart pounding against its ribcage prison, she falls onto her back and cries silently into her hands. Her throat is raw from the effort to keep her sobs quiet, just like the TV, quiet, don't disturb the baby. Her hands cover her face. The pads of her fingers are sticky and mark up her perspiration-slicked forehead. She covers her face, she pulls out clumps of hair, she kicks the air and she boxes the invisible punching bag hanging above her._

 _She falls asleep like that, in a daze of utter bewilderment. When Bob creeps into her room some hours later, she rouses and her stomach and throat and scalp hurt. She smooths the bedsheets and brushes off the hair she'd yanked out. The disrupted black strands fall gracefully to the carpet as her father hands her a note._

 _"This woman came by the restaurant today and asked for you. I told her you were busy, so she wrote down her number for you," he mutters before taking his brisk exit._

 _Louise glances at the paper._

 _Hey. Call me 745-2395 -Jessica_


	22. down

Logan gazes at her, eyes at half-mast and just barely blue enough to notice. "Do you know, Four Ears," he says, "how many people only ever see you frowning?"

"Probably lots," she says.

"Don't you want to stand out?" he counters.

Louise chews on a hangnail on her thumb, and he disappears in a sparkle of golden laughter. She blinks again, imagining the memory as something vaguely scribbled onto a whiteboard. Two swipes from the eraser, and it's gone.

Jessica had enjoyed her burger very much. Her dessert was Louise's lips, another treat she seemed to take delight in as they crammed themselves into the employee bathroom. And it was nice, honestly. Refreshing. It reminded Louise of old times.

"You know, you could run away again," Jessica tells her. "With me."

"I thought you had a girlfriend?"

The other woman blinks, her mouth twisting, then some snorts of laughter tumble past her lips and right into Louise's stone chamber of a heart. "Come on. You know I made that shit up, right? I'm on my own up there."

Louise rolls her eyes. "Right. Yeah. I knew that, I was just screwing with ya."

Her friend smirks and tosses a fiery tangle of hair over her shoulder. Getting up onto the roof of Bob's Burgers had been no simple feat. The attic provided zero easy access, so it had taken climbing through one of the windows in Gene's room, grabbing the paint-chipped sill, which left blisters in its wake, then using every ounce of leg and upper body strength to push themselves up onto the tippity top. The fact that it had been performed past dusk was also a contributing factor to Jessica nearly slipping and becoming a splattered, freckled pancake on the sidewalk below.

"I don't know," she says suddenly.

"No?"

"No." Louise sucks on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. "I mean… yeah, I dunno."

Jessica stretches her arms up, up, flexing her fingers at the sky. "It's up to you, L. But I gotta get back to my job in a couple days, and I'm not waiting up."

Louise stares at the tiny flecks of bright white in the sky— the _stars_ — and then they're freckles, a million dots of orange sprinkled over cheeks and arms and shoulders and legs. She shakes her head. "I'm so tired of making these stupid decisions."

"Hm?"

"'Come join me, Louise. I'm leaving in two fucking days and not coming back for _years_ , you really should come along or we'll never, _ever_ fucking see each other again!'" She sits up and squeezes her hands into trembling fists. "Why do I have to make the choice every time? Maybe I want to be on my own for a change! Has anyone ever thought of that? I just don't _care_ anymore, Jess. It's exhausting! All flying fucks have landed. I don't _give_ a crap anymore." She blows a strand of wily hair out of her face, and when it's cleared all she sees is Jessica, with her head tilted and her eyes narrowed.

"What happened between you and Logan?"

"Nothing that's your business," she says, her rebuttal scathing as a slap to the face. She pulls up her knees and wraps her arms around her legs, compacting herself into the tiniest ball possible. Being small and short-statured has got to be something she takes more advantage of.

"Don't shut me out again, Louise." There's a hand on Louise's shoulder, and she sighs.

She turns to Jessica, and offers her best grateful smile. "Jess, I love you. But please, don't let yourself be dragged back down into my mess of a life."

"Lou—"

"You've helped me out a lot. You helped me realize I'm bi. You showed me what a different side of things is like. But I can't, I can't ruin you like I ruin everything else. Let me push you away, okay? Take the cue and go. I love you too much to let you fall for me. Before things get too real between us, you should… you should just go back to Michigan or Maine or wherever it is you're living now, a- and find someone who deserves you more than I do."

Jessica's mouth closes, and she nods. "I love you too, Louise Belcher."

Her whisper tickles Louise's ears for the rest of her life.

 **oo0oo**

 _Postpartum depression._

 _She'd been planning on driving herself to the doctor, but Rudy came home to visit just in time. He showed up at the door with a present in his hands, shimmery green wrapping paper and a pink bow._

 _"Oh," she'd said. "For Roxy."_

 _His forehead crinkled up like tissue paper. "No, Lou. Happy birthday." His mouth started to turn up in an amused grin— oh, silly Louise, so busy at the restaurant that she completely forgot her own birthday._

 _She leaned heavily against the door and threw her hand against her face hard enough for it to sting. "It's my birthday," she sniffed. "Right."_

 _"Yeah…" he said hesitantly. "It's January 24th."_

 _She's twenty-two and leaning against the car window. The condensation seeps through from outside, and her finger draws random shapes idly on the foggy glass._

 _"It's a good thing to admit that you're struggling, Louise," the doctor says. "Motherhood is not an easy task for everyone. It can be very difficult indeed. Luckily, your postpartum depression is only at a slightly above moderate level. We can remedy this with antidepressants."_

 _The bag from the pharmacy rustles in her other hand. Later, she's leaning against the kitchen counter, counting water droplets from the faucet and shaking the pill bottle in her fingers. Rattle, rattle, rattle._

 _"You were forced," Rudy says, the tears dripping silently, forging shiny paths on his cheeks. Dripping like the kitchen faucet, paths like the drawings on the car window, silent like the muted TV. Her mind spins, trapped in the ride at Wonder Wharf she used to love. "Now I understand, Lou. You don't have to be married before having kids. And having kids, well… i- it was your choice. You did all of this for me. But you don't have to anymore. You're not disappointing me, ever."_

 _He drops her off but she doesn't go inside the apartment, no, she walks up the block to Wonder Wharf. It's January, so it's freezing and the breeze whips sand grains in a whirlwind around her. She jumps the barriers and sits down in the spinning teacups ride. Half-melted snow fills most of the teacups. She chooses the one with the least amount and kicks the slush around with her foot._

 _That night, Bob comes to her room and sits down on her bed. His mustache is filled with gray flecks. "Louise, the… the fact that I never recognized how much you were suffering… that haunts me. I've failed here as your father. I should have understood. I should have been supportive. I should have realized. But I didn't, and that misstep will always stay with me. I shouldn't be apologizing only now that you've been diagnosed, but… now I promise that I will still be your dad, the one you know and grew up with, um… the one that you need, every step of the way. You're my baby, a- and you always will be. I'm so sorry."_

 _She calls Jessica and reintroduces herself to the concept of a best friend. Every pill swallowed is a step closer to normalcy. She walks outside wearing the gift from Rudy— a pink beanie— as vague diagrams of change are drawn in her mind._


End file.
